Crouch urged that three ranger districts be established in the park as a means of making the ranger organization more effective. The three districts would include the northern and southern sections of the park and the middle portion consisting of the park headquarters, rim, and lake areas. He observed:
Operating from the central office at Park Headquarters offers certain and obvious disadvantages. Unnecessarily long trips, lost time and expenses result in the centralized operation. To send rangers from headquarters to outlying sections of the park to handle any work is obviously not as quick and therefore not as efficient as having men stationed in these sections where they would be closer to the work and equally as familiar with it or perhaps more so than the ones from headquarters. The establishment and operation of districts would lessen the present need for so much direct supervision from headquarters and would allow more time for planning and general supervision . . . .
The North and South Districts would include 112.76 square miles or 72,166.40 acres each. Each district would include two checking stations, two camp grounds, one CCC camp and one or more contractors’ camps. Each district would contain approximately 35 miles of primary highway and 70 miles of administration and protection motorways. The Headquarters District, on the other hand, would contain approximately 25 square miles or 16,000 acres, 20 square miles or 12,800 acres of which represent the water surface of Crater Lake. What this district lacks in the way of extensive area, it more than makes up in the concentration of use and extensive developments. It would include the Chief Ranger’s office, the main fire equipment cache and fire dispatcher’s office, administration buildings, employees’ quarters, utility buildings, the Rim Area, the Rim camp ground, the Lodge, Cafeteria and overnight cabins of the operator, Crater Lake itself and its crater and the park’s two primary fire lookouts.
The District Rangers would be directly responsible for protection work in the respective areas with general work plans and general supervision and coordination originating at the Headquarters Station. The volume of protection work consisting of forest protection, building fire protection, traffic and highway control and patrol, wildlife protection, checking station operations and information service, camp ground management, police protection, etc. is practically evenly divided between districts.
The Crouch report analyzed the need for additional ranger personnel in the park. The ranger force should consist of the chief ranger, and an assistant chief ranger who would handle the headquarters district during the summer and supervise ranger activities throughout the park in the winter when the chief ranger was stationed at Klamath Falls. Two permanent park rangers were needed to supervise forest protection and visitor use activities in the park. The ranger in charge of forest protection would be responsible for:
preparation and revision of plans, the Fire Atlas, reports and records; training schools for fire protection; dispatching; care and accountability for fire tools and equipment; fire studies and fire reviews; forest insect and tree disease operations, including annual inspections, reports and control measures; fire hazard reduction; wood utilization and right-of-way clearing; maintenance and supply of primary and secondary fire lookouts; fire prevention and fire suppression.
The ranger responsible for visitor services would have the following duties:
checking station operations; camp ground services; police protection, including cooperation with outside police agencies; all work connected with traffic and highway use; automobile accidents, first aid, emergency rescues and other emergency services; building fire protection, inspection of buildings for hazardous conditions, training and supervision of the Fire Brigade; care and accountability for ranger equipment other than that for forest fire protection; preparation and revision of manuals and work plans, including the Ranger Manual.
The ranger organization, according to Crouch, also needed two seasonal district rangers (north and south districts) and eleven seasonal rangers. [17]
