Fire prevention and control also continued to be of prime concern to park management. A park fire historical study conducted in July 1964 found, however, that “fire risks and hazards” were “considered to be generally low in this area compared to other parks.” The study stated:
Climatic conditions and vegetative development at the Park’s high elevations are responsible with its exceptionally high soil moisture content, low litter and debris accumulation and the pumice soil.
The study also provided a summary of the fire history of the park during the previous thirty years:
Annual mean averages during the past 30 years discloses that 7.6 lightning, 1.2 smoker, 0.3 camper, 0.2 debris and 0.5 miscellaneous fires occur each year. The maximum total fires occurring in one season has been 28. During this thirty year period about 85% of all fires were Class A, with 15% being Class B. There have been no Class C, D, or E fires during this period. Non-preventable fires have resulted in 83% Class A fires and 17% Class B fires. Preventable fires resulted in 91% Class A and 9% Class B burns. An average of three acres has burned annually in the Park, with a suppression cost of $645. . . . [50]
E. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: 1970s-1980s
Resource management concerns continued to be the focus of considerable attention by Crater Lake National Park personnel during the 1970s and 1980s. In June 1970 the Service adopted three objectives that would govern the parameters for resource management concerns for the decade. These were:
a. The primary natural resources of the park will be managed to insure the perpetuation of the factors basic to the park’s establishment
b. Encourage and administer a viable and purposeful research program
c. Road systems and park developments will be brought into balance with demonstrated visitor use patterns with regard to the influence on existing ecosystems [51]
One of the primary issues that continued to face park officials in the early 1970s was wildlife management, particularly as it pertained to black bear. Thus in November 1974 Superintendent Sims approved a bear management plan that was in line with the NPS Advisory Board on Wildlife Management’s recommendation “that the biotic associations within each park be maintained or, where necessary, recreated as nearly as possible in the condition that prevailed when the area was first visited by white man.”
The approved plan reflected the extension of policies and procedures that had been in place at the park for several years as park managers, in an attempt to revert the black. bear back to its natural food source and to avoid human injury and property damage incidents, had eliminated all dumping within the park, installed bear-proof garbage cans, and initiated a bear research program. It was noted that when Crater Lake was compared with other large national parks the number of bear incidents was not as numerous nor the incidents as serious. Reported personal injuries inflicted by black bears over the previous ten years had averaged one in every two years. Black bears that had been destroyed were few in number and were primarily those who inflicted injuries to humans. It was estimated that the existing bear population in the park was about the same as it had been in 1902, ranging between 75 and 100 animals.
