#fire-ecology

#fire-ecology

During the twentieth century, the United States declared war on wildfires. In 1935, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service announced "an experiment on a continental scale": every blaze was to be put out by 10 A.M. on the morning after it began. Given that fires had been burning regularly for hundreds of millions of years, this was an enormous departure from the natural order. Fire clears vegetation and delivers nutrients to soil, creating fresh cycles of growth that help ecosystems.