"Prevent wildfires" admonishes Smokey
Bear's stern countenance. Sounds like a good nonpartisan cause. Everyone from
lumberjacks to tree-huggers hates to see blackened stumps where lofty trunks once
stood. "Smokey is dead -- prescribe wildfires" is the version affixed to the door
of Ron Wakimoto's office in the University of Montana's School of Forestry. Like
a Nietzsche of the woods, Wakimoto wants to dethrone the beloved bear and reverse
one of the most successful PR campaigns in American history. He's not alone, either.
Smokey's approval ratings are so high today that it's probably hard to
imagine a time when anybody anywhere thought a wildland fire was a good idea.
Fire was the enemy of those entrusted with protecting the forest from going to
waste until it could be harvested properly: A century ago the first professional
foresters regularly complained that large forest fires burned more acreage in
a flash than ever fell to the ax and saw. Measured Doses Today
fire ecologists such as Ron Wakimoto and, yes, the same folks who brought you
Smokey Bear have come to believe that fire is as vital to the health of a forest
as water. To them, a hundred years of battling to "put 'em out" means that now
more acres will burn in uncontrollable blazes or die of disease than if fire is
reintroduced to the landscape in measured doses and with carefully crafted goals.
Wakimoto has even gone so far as to testify before Congress that crown fires --
the tree-consuming infernos that make the news with their spectacular flames --
should be set on purpose in wilderness areas to help restore a healthier
patchwork of trees of different ages. This is strong medicine, when even small
prescribed burns provoke angry letters to the editor decrying the ugliness of
the aftermath.
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