A conversation with fire historian and MacArthur Fellow Stephen Pyne, author of "The Pyrocene," about thinning old-growth forests and embracing a new fire aesthetic.
Helluva thing, Amanda! You figured out how to tell this story. Brilliantly!
Knife's edge. Rampant predjudices and the legacy of Smokey Bear. Know nothing do-gooders parading around as if preferential ignorance and ill-informed good intentions somehow come with generous doses of fairy dust and science-defying miracles.
This was a well written and very informative piece. I will share it with many. Thanks again Amanda.
I also recommend the book 1491 by Charles Mann who describes the cultures and environment of the pre-Columbian Americas, and dedicates a good portion to indigenous forest management.
A damn fine article highlighting the importance of fire to the West's (i.e., the aridland's) forests. Until fire suppression was introduced in the 19th century the forests of the western states, especially those in California and the Southwest, were subject to a regular low-intensity fire regime, whether started by lightning storms or people (the tribes, as you point out, understood the importance of fire on the landscape, as well as how to wield fire effectively). The Park Service, Forest Service etc., implementing suppression at all cost, facilitated the huge understory build-up that causes today's wildfires to be so catastrophic, the engineering of Eden run amok. Though things are gradually getting back on track, we need to be able to see and value fire on the landscape—a destructive, though ultimately rejuvenating, factor, essential to the aridland forest biome.
As much as I support the environmental movement and champion laws such as the ESA, many environmental groups and organizations (especially those most sanctimonious) too often weaponize such laws to further an agenda (one which appears to abhor the idea of humans living on, and working with, the land). They are preservationists rather than conservationists. I also think some are keen to make a fast buck off of people's genuine concerns about the environment. As you mention in the article, those who falsely equate forest thinning and selective logging with clear-cutting would rather see a forest ecosystem burned to the ground instead of taking pre-emptive action to save the forest for the trees (as it were). The environmental movement, though still capable of good work, has lost much of its teeth and vision, the manna of lawsuits and overregulation having clouded the spirit somewhat. Absolutism, entitlement etc.
Stephen J. Pyne is a national treasure—his clear-headed, common sense and no nonsense approach to forest management, if heeded, would save the federal government a lot of money. More importantly, Pyne's knowledge, when implemented on the ground, would keep the nation's forests in robust good health, embracing the flames that keep the biome alive and thriving.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Keep up the awesome work—nuance is fast becoming a rare commodity.
Thank you so much for this, Amanda. I will be sharing (and quoting) this incredibly thoughtful, detailed article. I appreciate it so much. I was one of those people who once couldn't stand the sound of a chainsaw, but I've come to understand the bigger picture. Thank you for parsing out the facts from the fiction and in such an accessible way.
Such an informative piece, thank you Amanda. Here in the UK we have frequent upland moorland and lowland heathland fires and there is the 'battle' between those who want to burn the heather and rejuvenate the plants and those who don't ..... much smaller scale, but the same arguments and during the more frequent dry summers we see increasing numbers of uncontrolled fires, often started by arsonists and people using portable BBQs, threatening homes, as well as devastating valuable habitats and burning peat.
Hi Amanda the problem I see is that mans use of fire initially changed the ecosystems from a stable climatic maximum to what we have today, the ecology will work toward this equilibrium no matter what we do unless we either create our own path to one or continually control this progression as you describe. What we lose with this approach is what worries me, we lose the ability to store water , create soil, and nutrient loss, the ability to create rain at vastly higher temperatures than would otherwise be created and we have the ability through these feed back loops that push the whole system to a higher level of instability. Controlled burns may not crown but studies have shown that heat generated will still kill life not only in the ground but in the canopy as well. Each thinning and fire event offers us an opportunity to reset the clock and replant with more preferential species which can suppress and nurture the evolved forest instead of relying on continuous interference. This thinning in part was done by herbivores and in part by natural progression of death and decay. Parts of the east coast that have not been subjected to fire since western governance have evolved with the ecosystem changing into a wetter dynamic all without any help from us, imaging what we could do with a bit more thought. Bacteria and fungi can create ice nucleation at temperatures as high as -2 degrees Celsius and fire smoke at -15 with normal nucleation at -38 without nucleating particles, These high temperature nucleating particles although rare change the dynamics of cloud and create rain at much higher temperatures than would otherwise be created, if we lose these we create the change from widespread rain over the lower reaches of mountain areas to higher localized rain events that are more damaging and are lost to the ocean leaving the majority parched. A lot more could be said on this and I believe more options may be available if we care to fully explore the dynamics. Many thanks
This is such a powerful article Amanda. Fascinating to read and so informative. We really need to get back to nature and relearn what works well in a natural ecosystem rather than man made mess!
Thank you. I will watch it. I agree with this summary line: "We can create forests that can handle large fires, or we can sit around and watch it all vaporize." The writing is on the wall: If we don't thin it, it will all burn down. It's not a great prospect for air quality, climate change, or ecosystems.
Your article should be essential reading for every student enrolled in natural resources programs in universities across the country. I graduated from The Ohio State University's School of Natural Resources in the early 1980s, studied and wrote about the Endangered Species Act, and never was fire suppression versus controlled burning mentioned. I regret having to wait so long to understand the true power of fire to protect the forests. I regret not teaching the high school students in my environmental science class about this. Thank you, Amanda, for bringing this issue to light for many who, like me, have always had good intentions but lacked proper information about what is necessary to save the big trees we love.
Thanks so much, Julie. The science, information and "marketing" situation is evolving and really coming to a head as we experience more catastrophic fires. I'm really glad to see tribes stepping up to spread the word. I certainly never learned any of this in school.
Excellent story. You make a very compelling case for something that should be obvious to people. Pyne is a great character. I confess I spent two days with Chad Hanson in Yosemite. He's a bit of a zealot.
Oh, and I hope you didn’t take my saying it was obvious as a slight. The piece is packed with useful information and does a great job explaining why the policies you’re discussing actually matter.
Background and bona fides for your readers: this is my 20th year in Fire, the Forest Service part of that journey lasted 14 years (and ended because I'm one of those "damned contrarians" ;-) ) and began as a Wildland Fire Apprentice on the Giant Sequoia National Monument/Sequoia National Forest. Over that 20 years I've worked in every sub-discipline of Wildland Fire Management, except jumping out of perfectly good airplanes/helicopters and driving bulldozers. I even spent 2 years recently as the Chair of a State Prescribed Fire Council where I helped engineer a massive expansion of Prescribed Burn Associations across my current state.
One thing everyone's missing here, surprisingly even Pyne (who has background in anthropology), is simple: humans are not logical, rational creatures. Never have been, likely won't be during our lifetimes. You touched on it when you and Steve were torching (pun intended) Hanson: pointing out he's viewing things through the lens of psychological and emotional trauma. The primary purpose of our "cognition" is justifying, post-facto, what our subconscious has already emotively determined is truth/right action. Piles of sociological and psychological research into bias, heuristics, marketing, and propaganda back me up here. Hanson is no different, nor are most neurotypicals.
With that lens in mind, think about this:
We show young kids Bambi, where a big horrible forest fire forces the cute animals to run for their lives, and come back to ashes where their home once was.
Then there's Smokey Bear, a sympathetic story, a cute fuzzy face, and a simple message: PREVENT ALL WILDFIRES.
A simple message with a rousing or sympathetic figure or scene, designed to evoke emotional reaction and compliance in the viewer.... there's a word for that, starts with a P, ends with anda.
Our brains tend to love simplicity and "tune out" nuance, as one of my favorite writers says: "For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and WRONG." (Mencken)
For irrational, emotive human subconsciouses, our "real brain" as it were, it's like crack: short-circuiting our logic, embedding itself in our brains like a tick; just like a well-dug-in one, it resists being removed by burrowing deeper, causing immense pain when poked, prodded, and especially when trying to remove the little bugger. Cognitive dissonance is that same pain, and I would argue it's more about dissonance between our sub-cognitive notions and cognitive logic. We all know who wins when those two fight, and it's usually not the rational one.
The old trope "facts don't care about your feelings" has a vastly more powerful mirror: "feelings don't care about your facts". Accordingly, when you're "arguing" with people about these topics, it's important to identify whether the "argument" truly is about facts, or feelings, and learn to shift gears and speak the appropriate way to the correct values.
It's a tricky task, but I know a guy who used that method to mend broken relationships and bring people to the table to do some awesome Interagency things in the Prevention/Mitigation world in one place where "it couldn't happen", the Malheur National Forest in Eastern Oregon. This guy utilized active listening, and really dug at the issues people brought to him, to figure out whether it was emotional, or logical/factual, and then adjusted his messaging to "speak the proper language". It got him increasing buy-in and eventually even Glen Palmer's Grant County Sheriff's Department (Palmer was renowned as a staunch "Anti-Federalist" in the Constitutional Sheriff movement) to throw in with the State and Feds for Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation.
tl;dr: Fixing the problem is simple: figure out how to propagandize thinning and burning to counteract the 80+ years of "PREVENT ALL WILDFIRES" propaganda.
Unfun fact: thinning without burning tends to take Timber-Understory or Timber-Litter fuel models which CAN burn intensely to a Slash-Blowdown fuel model that if it does catch WILL burn WAY MORE intensely, lob embers everywhere, and be a SOB to fight with anything short of an airshow and heavy equipment.
Helluva thing, Amanda! You figured out how to tell this story. Brilliantly!
Knife's edge. Rampant predjudices and the legacy of Smokey Bear. Know nothing do-gooders parading around as if preferential ignorance and ill-informed good intentions somehow come with generous doses of fairy dust and science-defying miracles.
Masterful!
Coming from a writer and person of your caliber, this is a true compliment. 🙏😊
This was a well written and very informative piece. I will share it with many. Thanks again Amanda.
I also recommend the book 1491 by Charles Mann who describes the cultures and environment of the pre-Columbian Americas, and dedicates a good portion to indigenous forest management.
Thank you🙏
I loved reading 1491 and try to quote it when I can. I mentioned it at the bottom of the Good Fire piece I wrote about the Karuk Tribe here: https://earthhope.substack.com/p/tribe-cements-right-to-use-fire
It's so great to encounter readers who love the same books I do!
A damn fine article highlighting the importance of fire to the West's (i.e., the aridland's) forests. Until fire suppression was introduced in the 19th century the forests of the western states, especially those in California and the Southwest, were subject to a regular low-intensity fire regime, whether started by lightning storms or people (the tribes, as you point out, understood the importance of fire on the landscape, as well as how to wield fire effectively). The Park Service, Forest Service etc., implementing suppression at all cost, facilitated the huge understory build-up that causes today's wildfires to be so catastrophic, the engineering of Eden run amok. Though things are gradually getting back on track, we need to be able to see and value fire on the landscape—a destructive, though ultimately rejuvenating, factor, essential to the aridland forest biome.
As much as I support the environmental movement and champion laws such as the ESA, many environmental groups and organizations (especially those most sanctimonious) too often weaponize such laws to further an agenda (one which appears to abhor the idea of humans living on, and working with, the land). They are preservationists rather than conservationists. I also think some are keen to make a fast buck off of people's genuine concerns about the environment. As you mention in the article, those who falsely equate forest thinning and selective logging with clear-cutting would rather see a forest ecosystem burned to the ground instead of taking pre-emptive action to save the forest for the trees (as it were). The environmental movement, though still capable of good work, has lost much of its teeth and vision, the manna of lawsuits and overregulation having clouded the spirit somewhat. Absolutism, entitlement etc.
Stephen J. Pyne is a national treasure—his clear-headed, common sense and no nonsense approach to forest management, if heeded, would save the federal government a lot of money. More importantly, Pyne's knowledge, when implemented on the ground, would keep the nation's forests in robust good health, embracing the flames that keep the biome alive and thriving.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Keep up the awesome work—nuance is fast becoming a rare commodity.
Thank you Aaron! I agree with all of your points. Thank you for reading. I went on much longer than you did ; )
Thank you so much for this, Amanda. I will be sharing (and quoting) this incredibly thoughtful, detailed article. I appreciate it so much. I was one of those people who once couldn't stand the sound of a chainsaw, but I've come to understand the bigger picture. Thank you for parsing out the facts from the fiction and in such an accessible way.
P.S. I still can't stand the sound of chainsaws. :) I just try not to have a knee-jerk black and white reaction to them. :)
I know exactly what you mean.
Such an informative piece, thank you Amanda. Here in the UK we have frequent upland moorland and lowland heathland fires and there is the 'battle' between those who want to burn the heather and rejuvenate the plants and those who don't ..... much smaller scale, but the same arguments and during the more frequent dry summers we see increasing numbers of uncontrolled fires, often started by arsonists and people using portable BBQs, threatening homes, as well as devastating valuable habitats and burning peat.
Hi Amanda the problem I see is that mans use of fire initially changed the ecosystems from a stable climatic maximum to what we have today, the ecology will work toward this equilibrium no matter what we do unless we either create our own path to one or continually control this progression as you describe. What we lose with this approach is what worries me, we lose the ability to store water , create soil, and nutrient loss, the ability to create rain at vastly higher temperatures than would otherwise be created and we have the ability through these feed back loops that push the whole system to a higher level of instability. Controlled burns may not crown but studies have shown that heat generated will still kill life not only in the ground but in the canopy as well. Each thinning and fire event offers us an opportunity to reset the clock and replant with more preferential species which can suppress and nurture the evolved forest instead of relying on continuous interference. This thinning in part was done by herbivores and in part by natural progression of death and decay. Parts of the east coast that have not been subjected to fire since western governance have evolved with the ecosystem changing into a wetter dynamic all without any help from us, imaging what we could do with a bit more thought. Bacteria and fungi can create ice nucleation at temperatures as high as -2 degrees Celsius and fire smoke at -15 with normal nucleation at -38 without nucleating particles, These high temperature nucleating particles although rare change the dynamics of cloud and create rain at much higher temperatures than would otherwise be created, if we lose these we create the change from widespread rain over the lower reaches of mountain areas to higher localized rain events that are more damaging and are lost to the ocean leaving the majority parched. A lot more could be said on this and I believe more options may be available if we care to fully explore the dynamics. Many thanks
This is such a powerful article Amanda. Fascinating to read and so informative. We really need to get back to nature and relearn what works well in a natural ecosystem rather than man made mess!
Thank you 🙏
Good stuff. I recommend this amazing Zoom presentation by fire ecologist Hugh Safford - and the Q&A is even better than his presentation. The link and my summary of it all is here: https://thecottonwoodpost.net/2021/09/22/the-causes-of-californias-megafires-climate-change-or-150-years-of-euro-american-mismanagement-yes-and-yes/
Thank you. I will watch it. I agree with this summary line: "We can create forests that can handle large fires, or we can sit around and watch it all vaporize." The writing is on the wall: If we don't thin it, it will all burn down. It's not a great prospect for air quality, climate change, or ecosystems.
Your article should be essential reading for every student enrolled in natural resources programs in universities across the country. I graduated from The Ohio State University's School of Natural Resources in the early 1980s, studied and wrote about the Endangered Species Act, and never was fire suppression versus controlled burning mentioned. I regret having to wait so long to understand the true power of fire to protect the forests. I regret not teaching the high school students in my environmental science class about this. Thank you, Amanda, for bringing this issue to light for many who, like me, have always had good intentions but lacked proper information about what is necessary to save the big trees we love.
Thanks so much, Julie. The science, information and "marketing" situation is evolving and really coming to a head as we experience more catastrophic fires. I'm really glad to see tribes stepping up to spread the word. I certainly never learned any of this in school.
Excellent story. You make a very compelling case for something that should be obvious to people. Pyne is a great character. I confess I spent two days with Chad Hanson in Yosemite. He's a bit of a zealot.
Thank you! Yes, it is obvious. And that's why Fix Our Forests will pass. The only thing that will come out of this administration that I support.
Oh, and I hope you didn’t take my saying it was obvious as a slight. The piece is packed with useful information and does a great job explaining why the policies you’re discussing actually matter.
The fire lighting, or controlled burns, was practiced by First People centuries ago.
Yes, and they will do it again soon.
Both fascinating and chastening. Thank you for all you are doing.
Thank you 🙏
So excited to sit down and read this. Making myself another cup of tea to do just that. 🥰
Thank you 🙏
Read and commenting as requested.
Background and bona fides for your readers: this is my 20th year in Fire, the Forest Service part of that journey lasted 14 years (and ended because I'm one of those "damned contrarians" ;-) ) and began as a Wildland Fire Apprentice on the Giant Sequoia National Monument/Sequoia National Forest. Over that 20 years I've worked in every sub-discipline of Wildland Fire Management, except jumping out of perfectly good airplanes/helicopters and driving bulldozers. I even spent 2 years recently as the Chair of a State Prescribed Fire Council where I helped engineer a massive expansion of Prescribed Burn Associations across my current state.
One thing everyone's missing here, surprisingly even Pyne (who has background in anthropology), is simple: humans are not logical, rational creatures. Never have been, likely won't be during our lifetimes. You touched on it when you and Steve were torching (pun intended) Hanson: pointing out he's viewing things through the lens of psychological and emotional trauma. The primary purpose of our "cognition" is justifying, post-facto, what our subconscious has already emotively determined is truth/right action. Piles of sociological and psychological research into bias, heuristics, marketing, and propaganda back me up here. Hanson is no different, nor are most neurotypicals.
With that lens in mind, think about this:
We show young kids Bambi, where a big horrible forest fire forces the cute animals to run for their lives, and come back to ashes where their home once was.
Then there's Smokey Bear, a sympathetic story, a cute fuzzy face, and a simple message: PREVENT ALL WILDFIRES.
A simple message with a rousing or sympathetic figure or scene, designed to evoke emotional reaction and compliance in the viewer.... there's a word for that, starts with a P, ends with anda.
Our brains tend to love simplicity and "tune out" nuance, as one of my favorite writers says: "For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and WRONG." (Mencken)
For irrational, emotive human subconsciouses, our "real brain" as it were, it's like crack: short-circuiting our logic, embedding itself in our brains like a tick; just like a well-dug-in one, it resists being removed by burrowing deeper, causing immense pain when poked, prodded, and especially when trying to remove the little bugger. Cognitive dissonance is that same pain, and I would argue it's more about dissonance between our sub-cognitive notions and cognitive logic. We all know who wins when those two fight, and it's usually not the rational one.
The old trope "facts don't care about your feelings" has a vastly more powerful mirror: "feelings don't care about your facts". Accordingly, when you're "arguing" with people about these topics, it's important to identify whether the "argument" truly is about facts, or feelings, and learn to shift gears and speak the appropriate way to the correct values.
It's a tricky task, but I know a guy who used that method to mend broken relationships and bring people to the table to do some awesome Interagency things in the Prevention/Mitigation world in one place where "it couldn't happen", the Malheur National Forest in Eastern Oregon. This guy utilized active listening, and really dug at the issues people brought to him, to figure out whether it was emotional, or logical/factual, and then adjusted his messaging to "speak the proper language". It got him increasing buy-in and eventually even Glen Palmer's Grant County Sheriff's Department (Palmer was renowned as a staunch "Anti-Federalist" in the Constitutional Sheriff movement) to throw in with the State and Feds for Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation.
tl;dr: Fixing the problem is simple: figure out how to propagandize thinning and burning to counteract the 80+ years of "PREVENT ALL WILDFIRES" propaganda.
Unfun fact: thinning without burning tends to take Timber-Understory or Timber-Litter fuel models which CAN burn intensely to a Slash-Blowdown fuel model that if it does catch WILL burn WAY MORE intensely, lob embers everywhere, and be a SOB to fight with anything short of an airshow and heavy equipment.