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Reviews
| Feds, Forests, and Fire: A Century of Canadian Forestry Innovation (Transformation Series, 13). By Richard A. Rajala. Ottawa, Ontario: Canada Science and Technology Museum, 2005. xi+116 pp., illus., notes, bibl., index. $20 Canadian pb (ISBN 0-660-18720-5).
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Richard Rajala embarked on a challenging task when he set out to write about the complex and changing organization that was and is the Canadian Federal Forest Service. The task is so wide ranging that he chose to focus on one significant aspect, forest fire detection and suppression.
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This issue, however, is so interwoven with the other duties of the Canadian Forest Service that he also briefly touches upon many other aspects and various related organizations. During its early years, for example, fire detection and suppression were closely associated with timber allocation; at that time (prior to 1930), the Canadian Forest Service directly administered a significant block of Canadian timberland. Aircraft were used for fire detection by 1920, but they were also closely linked with inventory and silviculture work. Sometimes the same forester might research tree growth, fire weather risk, and fire suppression, all at the same time and at the same place. The provincial forestry organizations worked independently on the same problems, and communication among these organizations was essential and facilitated by the Canadian Forest Service. Canadian organizations also utilized developments by the United States Forest Service.
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Rajala examines forest fire detection and suppression both topically and chronologically, setting out a context in each chapter of general policy and related events, regardless of whether he is looking at the development of portable pumps or methods of assessing fire risk. The topics range over the spectrum of early fire detection: from patrols along purpose-built trails and observation from rudimentary lookout stations to the newer suppression technologies such as specialized hand tools and pumps and to the emergence of aviation, initially for detection and subsequently also for suppression. He also takes a side step to look at the Federal Forest Service's role in advocating fire risk assessment and of developing fire weather monitoring methods to establish forest fire risk. His examination of the changes in portable pump technology combined with his research into federal government awareness about the relationship among fuel moisture, weather, and fire behavior are key discussions in the volume.
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The Canadian Federal Forest Service has had to change directions a number times, although perhaps the biggest shift occurred after 1930 when the vast forest lands that until then had been administered by the federal government were transferred to British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Rajala also briefly discusses other aspects of federal forestry work, including inventory and silviculture. His discussion provides a useful summary and is generally placed in the context of fire detection and suppression.
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The literature on the administration of the forest and on forest fire control by the various Canadian organizations is at best hit-and-miss. Much has been written about policy, the most widely noted volume being R. Peter Gillis and Thomas R. Roach's study (Lost Initiatives: Canada's Forest Policy and Forest Conservation, New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), but even here the authors were unable to interweave the story of the various agencies and instead looked individually at federal, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick organizations. Kenneth Johnstone wrote a useful history of the Canadian Federal Forest Service in 1991 (Timber and Trauma: 75 Years with the Federal Forest Service, 1899–1974, Ottawa: Forestry Canada, 1991), and a volume on natural resource administration in Ontario was published in 1967 (Richard S. Lambert with Paul Pross, Renewing Nature's Wealth: A Centennial History, Toronto: Ontario Department of Lands and Forest, 1967). For two of Canada's largest provincial forest services, British Columbia and Quebec, there is no published monograph history. Even in the dramatic area of forest fire fighting, volumes have only been published for Alberta (Peter J. Murphy, History of Forest and Prairie Fire Control Policy in Alberta. Edmonton: Alberta Energy and Natural Resources, 1985) and Quebec (Patrick Blanchet, Forest Fires: The Story of a War, Montreal: Cantos International Publishing, 2003). Rajala's volume is important for bringing this discussion a step further through creating a Canada-wide narrative.
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The Canada Museum of Science and Technology Transformation Series is intended to bring new research to a wider audience, and in this task, it succeeds admirably. The editors generally choose established authors who draw on work they have already undertaken and combine it with some specialized new research results to create extremely useful summaries of industries or technologies. Rajala's volume is not an exception. He provides a nice balance between a summary of existing literature on the forest industry and its technologies and new research. He provides both a contextual framework and a guide to the evolution of the practice and technology of fire detection and suppression in Canada.
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