RHODE ISLAND
A NOTE OF INTEREST IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOOKOUTS IN THIS STATE:
January 1917: From the 11th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Forestry:
"Although forest owners are ready to help build and equip the stations, and the State offers to pay one-half of the cost of maintenance for a limited period, the towns have not yet seen fit to establish and maintain lookout stations as provided by the law passed in 1911. Such stations are of great benefit as providing a very low rate of insurance on standing wood. Within the last few years, a number of wooded towns in the United States and Canada, for lack of such stations, have been burned up, villages and all. In any heavily wooded town in this State, who could stop a forest fire after it had got under full headway in a dry time before a gale? In Massachusetts these stations are established by state appropriation with such additional aid as towns and individuals may give. Twenty such stations cover all of the 2,400,000 acres of woodland in 344 towns of the State. The minute a forest fire starts, the watchman at the station notifies the warden and forest owners by telephone. Other states have these stations. This law, which requires co-operation between adjoining towns, in the building of the stations, does not appear workable. The State will have to establish the stations."