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Show 70 "We like to ask you to help us collect bibliographic information concerning: 'Prevention of forest fires by sheep' We hope that your Firebase contains information about this subject. We searched by all our ovin information centres in the databases available If there are any costs, vie will pay- We must have collected this information before the end of February 1980. We hope you can help us!" Karen comments, "They certainly did a better job of asking the question in English than I would if I had to ansvier it in Dutch." The question about sheep had to do viith fuel breaks - wide paths cut through forests as fire barriers. If a burning tree falls into a cleared fuel break, the fire has nothing to feed on and goes out. In pine forests in the Southern United States, new baby trees grow rapidly in cleared areas, so sheep are allowed to graze on the seedlings to keep the fuel breaks clear. Karen usually mailed out answers to questions like this viithin three days after she received the requests. More complex ansviers, such as those about fire management plans, might take a bit longer. Officials of all Kational parks and national forests are required to write fire management plans for all the areas they administer. Each section of public land is divided into zones. Taking into account the kind of trees, their heights and ages, the kind of ground cover and the amount of debris on the forest floor, officials decide ahead of time how severe a fire would be if it got started in each zone. Then |
