Forest Service Chief Greeley wrote “Paiute Forestry” or the Fallacy of Light Burning from the perspective that wildland fire should be entirely excluded from American forests to protect timber values and to prevent large fires. This perspective was widely held by foresters and fire managers of that time period because of, in part, several extremely large fires, including the “Big Blowup” which had recently occurred at a great cost of lives and property. After the fire season of 1910, when 85 people lost their lives and 5 million acres of forest land was burned, fire managers began formulation of a new, economically driven fire policy called “least-cost plus-loss.” This placed the protection of valuable timber at the center of American fire policy.
Over time, experienced fire managers and foresters, through implementation of the “least-cost plus-loss model,” believed that the most cost-effective way to protect timber was to extinguish all fires as soon as possible after ignition, thereby lowering the chances that they would grow to uncontrollable conflagrations. This very narrow view of the objective of fire management justified the increased expenditure of resources for “initial attack” of wildland fire. With an incredible amount of resources available to fight the fires (Civilian Conservation Corps during and after the Great Depression), the Forest Service soon became extremely effective at extinguishing them. This effective wildfire response led to overstocked and unhealthy forests and wildlands that were more susceptible to drought, disease, and devastatingly large wildfires in the decades that followed.
Chief Greeley represented the viewpoint that the forests were a resource that required active management in the tradition of European forestry. He believed that forests contained resources that benefitted the citizens of the country by driving economic growth – They needed to be protected. He criticized those who practiced “Paiute Forestry,” including railroad owners, homesteaders, and other landowners, as lazy forest managers who were destroying “Pineries” by killing the forest understory and seedlings, and initiating a conversion to “brush fields.” He viewed them as a threat to the economic prosperity of the country.
The “least-cost plus-loss” was called into question as fire managers and foresters began to measure the effects of fire exclusion on the landscape. In the 1960’s, costs for wildland fire were still increasing and expensive resource damage was not being reduced. Federal agencies and the public were now questioning whether this policy was economically viable. Concurrently, agencies began to understand that wildland fire was a vital part of the ecosystem and began to reintroduce fire by prescribed burning in some National Parks and Wilderness Areas.
The economic failure of “least-cost plus-loss” allowed new management philosophies to enter the debate surrounding fire policy. This gave rise to and economic incentive to understand the role of natural fire in the forest ecosystem. And the understanding that high frequency, low intensity fires in many of our forests were actually vital to protect them from the scourge of disease. Photos presented in the TEDx Video Living (Dangerously) in an Era of Megafires, show the results of fire exclusion – extreme overstocking and forests that are just waiting to be consumed by enormous fires.
Scientists and fire managers are now shifting from a policy of total fire exclusion to a policy of managing fire as a tool to bring our forests into equilibrium. Instead of excluding and stopping fire completely for the short term goal of saving individual timber stands, managers are learning to introduce fire back onto the landscape to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire – which will make our communities safer, and eventually save us billions of dollars in wildfire suppression costs and property losses.
Donovan, Geoffrey H., and Thomas C. Brown. “Wildfire management in the US Forest Service: a brief history.” Natural Hazards Observer. July (2005). 3 p (2005).
Greeley, William B. “Piute Forestry’or the fallacy of light burning.” The Timberman 21 (1920): 38-39.
One reply on “A Shift in Fire Policy”
I wonder what Greeley was using to justify suppressing light burning. It would really depend on exactly what was written in his book and exactly what was common belief in the world at the time. While I can’t find anything conclusive on Google I would wonder how fire policy developed around the globe. You mention that Greeley represented the European opinion of suppression. Did Europe develop the same fire policy at the same rate? It seems clear that the US did not have the means to impact wildfire meaningfully until just before Greeley. I wonder if Europe, having less forests and higher populations, followed the same path.
Also I just thought it was interesting – Roosevelt and Pinchot did not like the policy of full suppression. I didn’t see anywhere they’d addressed it from a efficacy-in-firefighting standpoint, but at the time of Greeley, large corporations owned large swaths of forestland. Greeley’s suppression policy was seen by Roosevelt as managing the private lands on behalf of the rich, and letting the taxpayers foot the bill. I would be curious to see how politics played into the policy. Hopefully not at all, but with Roosevelts involvement in the forest service it’s hard to imagine.