California Wins Forest Fire League Championship

California, for the second successive season, is winner of the National Forest Fire League championship of the United States. After getting off with an indifferent start in the face of a bad season, and trailing for months in the second division, she staged a spectacular come-back in July and August and rapidly climbed to first place. With a total of 1,810 fires, which uii to September 30 had burned over 605,000 acres of Government and private lands, and cost $786,000 to suppress, there is no possibility, experts say, of any State in the Union overcoming her commahding lead in the few weeks of play-season left.

The citizens of the Golden State, in spite of the Federal ground rules which greatly restricted their play-field, hung up a record of 59 per cent out of every 100 fires that occurred. Lightning, which always stands high on the forest fire batting list, slumped badly in midseason, but finished strong with an average of 41 per cent.

Smokers were the "Babe Ruth" of the fire league, and scored 43 per cent of all man-caused fires, with campers second at 15 per cerit. Other league leaders in destluction rvere brush burners, railroads, ltimbermen and incendiaries. Contrary to all known rules of good sport, errors and carelessness on the part of citizen-players were large- ly responsible for the remarkable showing made by the State.

In the face of this unequalled record, the Forest Fire league of California bids fair to close its season with the greatest financial loss ever experienced. Conservative es- timates place the forest fire damage at over $5,000,m0, which will eventually come out of the pockets of the tax payers of the State.

Bay District Building Permits For First Half Of 1924

Below is a remarkable showing of building permits in 12 San Francisco Bay cities for the first half of the vear t924:

Bob Osgood Happy Over Arrival Of Son

Robert Osgood, Los Angeles manag'er for the Wheeler Osgood Company, has happily announced the arrival of the first child in his family, a fine boy, on the night of the 2nd. of this month.

He says that the mother and babe are getting along wonderfully, and that he is just about the proudest individual in the state.