The Early Practice of Forest Fire Control

Up to 1971, little action to implement the above recommendations had been taken. The usual reasons given for this apparent apathy were lack of funds and lack of expertise. So far as prevention activities were concerned, the only significant efforts had been a few small ad hoc programs on forest conservation run by various divisions; a few talks to school children made by a few field officers on their own initiative; and personal contacts made by the same officers with shifting cultivators and other residing in forest areas.

At that time, simple hand tools such as axes, swatters, and shovels were introduced for putting out the fires when they were detected. The forest fire suppression methodology was simple and disorganized.

A few patrolmen were deployed at experimental forest plots and at some plantations. Their function appeared to have been that of prevention rather than fire detection. For the most part, they were on foot and were never provided with radios or other means of communication, nor were they provided with fire suppression equipment of any type.

Early burning was carried out in some young teak plantations as a hazard reduction measure. Some pre-suppression firebreaks were made within and around plantations and small experimental forests. Reputedly, they were effective in stopping an average fire and there was evidence of this in a few places. Most of the firebreaks were about two meters wide, often prepared entirely by hand and maintained by cleaning and burning the debris. However, some officers reported that even with a four meters wide firebreak under a full canopy in teak-bearing forests, the firebreak was not effective in stopping a fire. Unfortunately no records were kept of the wind speeds at the time of the fires.

Forest fire suppression has not yet been started by the Thais. Annual wildfires kept duels accumulating and therefore there was never enough fuel, except in the pine plantations, to produce an intensely hot fire. Fire fighting was comparatively easy that time in those areas where access was not difficult. In most forests, natural water supplies were sparse, but the light fuels and lack of a humus layer made fire line construction easy.
 

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