Mid Galloway forestry area fire plan 1963 - Glentrool Forest Park
The plan was printed by Joan Park whose father, a forester at Glentrool Forest, is listed as the Fire Warden for the Forest Park. The document comes from the Journal of the Forestry Commission 1963.
The author credited with doing most of plan construction is M R M Williams who was a District Officer over Jedburgh way and not certain of his link with the area. The plan mainly covers the Glen Trool Forest Park forest areas but also includes some other forests on the periphery.
The plan gives readers a glimpse into the forests, their staff numbers, vehicles as well and the fairly onerous duties of the fire warden during the fire season. They were required to take and receive meteorological readings three times daily and calculate the fire hazard for the area and then notify all the locations and fire officer. Readings would, as normal, be taken seven days per week during the fire season.
There is mention of the fire hazard readings being adapted from the Canadian method and must have been some time prior to the Forestry Commission modifing this fully to their own fire risk and hazard table calculations.
The other interesting point is the use of radio – vehicle, personal (back packs) and fixed base sets in offices as well high level radio receiving stations based on hill top masts. The mast location at Glentrool Forest is not indicated but was Bennan Hill. The instructions on use of radio, radio call format and procedure as well as the range of call signs point to a fairly complex system but in reality this only highlights the severe limitations of equipment at that time.
According to Don Amer in his description (picture No 456) the Forestry Commission at that time only had three radio channels to cover the country and it was the Simplex Frequency System that dictated that calls in and calls out were on the same frequency and one could, and did, block the other. It appears that the radio at Glentrool Office was a cable extension from the base set upon the hill. In order that the office could operate as a Fire Control base station the link had to be switched on and entailed driving up to the hilltop station. Joan recalls her father being called out at night on more than one occasion when fire emergencies arose to drive up to the hill top and switch on the Office system. This was later improved by installing a switching system in the forester’s house, a noisy electrical box as Joan remembers. Note also the radio call phonetic alphabet which appears to have varied then from the current universal standard.
The forests covered by the plan are listed as:
Under Newton Stewart District – Forests of Glentrool, Kirroughtree, Penninghame, Bareagle and Kilsture.
Under Dalry District – Forests of Bennan, Clatteringshaws, Dundeugh, Garraries and Corriedoo.
Under Barr District – Forests of Balloch, Arecleoch, Changue, Starr, Tairlaw, Kilgrammie and Kyle
Under Gatehouse District – Forests of Cullendoch, Fleet, Glengap and Lauriston
Under Dalbeattie District – Forest of Carcrogo.
Total labour available per forest is listed and totals 294 with 19 lorries, 16 vans and 1 Land Rover equipped with 29 fire pumps and 168 back pack hand pumps.
The fire plan can be seen in the PDF below. Any comments and information very welcome.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports