In 1894, Minnesota's most disastrous forest fire killed over 400 persons at Hinckley and set the stage for action by the Legislature which in 1895 unofficially began the Minnesota Forest Service.
Since that time, the State has been divided into administrative areas with headquarters for what is known as Area 31 set up in Brainerd in 1911. On February 1, 1957 the Brainerd station was also designated as headquarters for a large forest region known as Region 3 of the Minnesota Department of Conservation, Division of Lands and Forestry.
Area 31 is composed of over 3 million acres of which almost 120,000 acres are state owned. The area includes all of Crow Wing County, the southern part of Cass, all of Todd, Morrison Benton and most of Mille Lacs Counties.
The forester in charge of this area is Arthur Ward, a veteran of some 40 years with the Division of Lands and Forestry.
Area 31 is divided into six districts with a forester in charge of all activities under the jurisdiction of the Division. Headquarters for the districts are Brainerd, Pillager, Pequot Lakes, Crosby, Little Fails and Onamia.
(The Department of Conservation was renamed the Department of Natural Resources effective January 1, 1971.)
The department is composed of five divisions -- Enforcement and Field Service, Lands and Forestry, Game and Fish, Parks and Recreation, and Water, Soils, and Minerals. The Bureau of Information and Education and five other "Service' bureaus are also attached to the department.
EARLY FORESTRY Many changes have taken place since 1911. The original reason the Lands and Forestry Division was activated was for fire prevention and suppression -- the protection of lives and property. Though the Division's responsibilities and duties have been greatly expanded, protection of lives and property from wild fire still takes precedence over all other activities.
In the early years of the organization, fire prevention and suppression was not popular with the settlers. They believed the land should all be cleared and utilized for agriculture. Fire was the cheapest and most popular land-clearing tool and often the land-clearing fires got out of control and burned much of the remaining stands of timber.
Fires were combatted by hand tools and manpower and many raging fires could not be controlled by these means. Roads were poor and few and communications were limited to undependable telephone services.
One of the first requirements of the Rangers and Patrolmen, as they were called in the early days, was a means of fire detection. This was accomplished by the construction of towers located strategically throughout the area.
Most of the early ones were built of wood and later wind-mill towers were used. Some of the first ones constructed in this area were the "Martin Hope" west of Gull Lake followed by Emily, Rail Prairie, Ahren's Hill and Pequot. Others were built under the CCC program in the 1930's.
In order to communicate with forestry stations and personnel telephone lines were constructed by forestry people. Some of these lines were only a wire strung between trees.
A bucket of water and a wet burlap sack was a common fire suppression tool. A shovel to apply dirt or sand to the fire was also used when water was not available. Needless to say, these tools were not very effective on a raging forest fire. Consequently, many of the fires of those years covered many acres before they were controlled.
NEW METHODS HAVE ADVANCED Some of the funds for forest fire control is received from the federal government under a bill known as the Clark-McNarry Act. The federal government set up standards of maximum annual allowable burn on a percentage basis and the various states receiving this aid have striven to achieve this goal. In order to meet this challenge, better detection, communications, equipment and better trained personnel were necessary.
There are now ten fire towers in the Brainerd Lands and Forestry area and another will soon be built. Present tower locations are Ahrens Hill, just north of Brainerd; Gull Lake on the west side of that lake; Motley, 3 miles NE of that town; Pequot, just west of that town; Emily, about four miles south of that village; Cuyuna, 2 miles north of Crosby; Borden Lake, about 3 miles southwest of Garrison: Sullivan Lake, on the south side of that lake; Isle Harbor, 2 miles southeast of Wahkon; and Mille Lacs, about 7 miles south- east of Onamia.
The new tower will be located about 12 miles south of Brainerd. These towers, when visibility is good, provide direct observation of most of the fire protection area in this part of the State.
All Lands and Forestry stations, fire towers, fire trucks, etc., are provided with two-way radios which provide adequate communications.
When a smoke is sighted, an initial attack unit is immediately dispatched to the fire and in most cases the fire is controlled in a short time. If more equipment is needed, a caterpillar tractor with a special fire plow is used and sometimes a tanker truck is utilized. Though the 10-year average of the number of fires extinguished by Lands and Forestry personnel in the Brainerd Area is 130 per year they are put out so quickly very few people know they ever occurred.
LAST BIG FIRE The last major fire in the Brainerd area occurred on April 14, 1959 and was called the Airport Fire. It burned over 1,508 acres and caused almost $15,000.00 damage. At one time, 107 men and considerable heavy equipment were engaged in controlling the fire.
A NEW DIVISION With the reorganization of the Department of Conservation by the 1967 session of the legislature, the lands section of the former Division of Lands and Minerals was moved to Forestry and this Division was then renamed Lands and Forestry.
This Division was thus designated as the managing agency for the trust fund lands in Minnesota. Trust fund lands are lands granted to the state by the United States and are held by the state in trust for the public. An act of Congress in 1849 reserved sections 16 and 36 of each township for the purpose of being applied to school and education. As some of the lands in these sections were either already sold or were areas of water, a later act gave the state other federal lands to make up the deficit.
The Division of Lands and Forestry is charged with managing these lands to produce as much revenue to the trust fund as reasonably possible.
TIMBER SALES Some of these lands which were covered with brush or timber species of low value are being planted to pine. At some later date the sale of the timber will provide more revenue for the support of our schools. Incidentally, only the interest from the trust fund may be spent. The principal cannot be used. Minnesota has the second largest trust fund in the U. S., Texas having the largest, theirs mostly derived from oil royalties.
FORESTRY AND GAME The Division of Lands and Forestry is sometimes criticized for not devoting more state lands to game habitat. Desirable as this may be, game habitat does not contribute one penny to the trust fund. Logging operations on state land results in improved game habitat but unfortunately, lack of markets does not permit as much timber cutting as should be done.
FORESTRY TODAY As stated before in this article, at its inception the Forest Service was almost exclusively a forest fire control agency. Now, besides fire control, the Division is engaged in the management of state owned lands and advises private timber land owners how to manage their holdings.
It operates three forest tree nurseries to provide planting stock to reforest state and private lands. It plants trees, improves by thinning and releasing both plantation and natural stands of young timber. It constructs and maintains various outdoor recreational facilities such as campgrounds, picnic areas, swimming beaches, riding and hiking trails, snowmobile trails, canoe routes, etc.
It cooperates with the Division of Game and Fish in establishing and improving game habitat.
Reproduced from the Centennial Edition of the Brainerd Daily Dispatch (1871-1971).
