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Chapter 7 World War II and Postwar Transitions Among the many aspects that differentiate the early JNF from the agency at mid and late century, probably no other underwent as tremendous an evolution as fire control. Even by the 1950s local situations had drastically changed from the earlier era of annual hillside burning. Indeed, in 1953 Ranger J. N. Van Alstine, who once recalled seeing “Meadow Creek and Sinking Creek black all the way to New River” from ash runoff, reflected that mowing sedge grass had replaced burning it, and the use of limestone fertilizer was improving the land.1 He joked about selling two of his New Castle District’s fire towers, one forty feet high on Sinking Creek Mountain and another sixtyfive feet high on Johns Creek Mountain. He explained how the towers had proved essential during the early years for fire detection, fire reporting, and communications. But, he said, “Today we have few fires and most of them are reported by local residents as soon as a lookout could report them. Improved communication facilities . . . and good citizens have canceled out the value of these towers.”2 World War II gave tremendous impetus to the campaign against forest fires. The Allied Effort, so highly dependent upon timber resources, helped make woodland arson “tantamount to sabotage,” and even the FBI began investigating forest incendiarism. During the 1940s a most remarkable drop took place in JNF incendiary fires, accounting for 46 percent of the Forest’s fires in 1941, down to 25 percent the following year, 20 percent the next, and only 3 percent in 1947.3 The 1940 Virginia state law prohibiting open-air burning before 4 p.m. contributed tremendously toward ending accidental and careless fires,4 and naturally, all the JNF’s educational efforts, public relations , and disincentives for “job fires” contributed to a reduction in fire incidence and damage. Throughout the 1940s, fires caused by smokers, debris burners, and railroads also dropped.5 During World War II all national forests channeled their resources into the Allied effort through such programs as the Timber Production War Project . In January 1942, Region 7 organized a Unit of War Activities and by September devoted more than 80 percent of its staff and forest resources toward the war effort. These activities included military designation of critical national forest and private timber supplies, added allocations for firefighting 92 j World War II and Postwar Transitions equipment, and a more intensive media campaign against firefighting, mainly warning that forest fires aided the Axis powers. In order to meet wartime demand , timber harvesting far exceeded the previous conservation era’s limited cutting. Loggers working on the JNF and other national forests felled much wood considered otherwise unsuitable for cutting. Annually, national wartime timber demands claimed about 17 billion cubic feet of wood, 50 percent more than the forests could regenerate in the same time period.6 The JNF supplied oak ship timbers, yellow poplar airplane veneers, saw timber for army trucks, and pulpwood for explosives. The Clinch District particularly supplied chestnut-oak, which the military shipped to Seattle for construction in nonmetallic bottoms for minesweepers. Other war demands on wood products included pulpwood for shell encasements, camouflage nets, and even collapsible fuel bags in airplanes. Counties in southwestern Virginia began pulpwood drives encouraging local landowners to meet the nation’s need, advocating a “cord of pulpwood for every serviceman.” Where Virginia loggers harvested only 450 million board feet in 1932 (continuing the decline after the 1909 peak of 2.1 billion), the war years saw the annual harvest rise more than a billion board feet.7 JNF timber contributed to such demands, but as Supervisor Cochran commented in 1943, the JNF war effort’s shortage lay not in wood but in available labor to harvest it. Nevertheless, during fiscal 1943 the JNF supplied over 8.6 million board feet of such wood.8 Fire Control and Timber Management The successful campaign against fire of the JNF and other Appalachian national forests began to wind down after World War II. Concurrently, the JNF diversified and broadened its firefighting endeavors by utilizing modern firesuppression technology (such as aerial detection and suppression and even smoke-jumpers) and participating in a national network of Forest Service firefighting. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, JNF firefighting technology followed all the modern developments. The JNF began using power pumps, radio communications , and portable fire simulators that used overhead projectors to portray fire, smoke, and background scenes, imitating the fire conditions...

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