For more than 50 years, the U.S. turned its back on the ‘light burning’ practices Native Americans had used for centuries.
Hundreds of small fires were burning in the northern Rocky Mountains late in the summer of 1910, stretching the resources of the newly created national Forest Service.
Then the hurricane-force winds picked up.
The fires spread, burned over 3 million acres, torched small towns, and killed at least 85 people.
Decades of treating fire as an unwanted evil and suppressing fires at all cost have left many of the nation’s forests unnaturally overgrown and littered with dead trees, limbs, and needles that can easily ignite with a spark or a lightning strike. And all of this is exacerbated by a warming climate that further dries those fuels and leads to a more combustible environment.
Focusing on the polarity — forest management or climate change — “is good for polarizing partisans,” Pyne said, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem.
“What I find when people get to that stage is that they’re really not talking about fire,” he said. “They’re using fire to promote some other agenda. And they wind up proposing things that don’t really speak to fire. Fire doesn’t care.
“At that point, it’s just wasted words and motions.”
Hundreds of small fires were burning in the northern Rocky Mountains late in the summer of 1910, stretching the resources of the newly created national Forest Service.
Then the hurricane-force winds picked up.
The fires spread, burned over 3 million acres, torched small towns, and killed at least 85 people.
Decades of treating fire as an unwanted evil and suppressing fires at all cost have left many of the nation’s forests unnaturally overgrown and littered with dead trees, limbs, and needles that can easily ignite with a spark or a lightning strike. And all of this is exacerbated by a warming climate that further dries those fuels and leads to a more combustible environment.
Focusing on the polarity — forest management or climate change — “is good for polarizing partisans,” Pyne said, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem.
“What I find when people get to that stage is that they’re really not talking about fire,” he said. “They’re using fire to promote some other agenda. And they wind up proposing things that don’t really speak to fire. Fire doesn’t care.
“At that point, it’s just wasted words and motions.”
