Birds and fire: forget what Smokey Bear told you. Fire is essential to healthy forest ecosystems

摘要

In the summer of 1988, half of Yellowstone National Park burned. In every year since, there have been remarkable fires somewhere in the Mountain West, and a few have led to a tragic, and avoidable, loss of firefighters' lives. Wildfire is powerful.We do not control it. On our best days on the firelines we may manage to steer it in certain directions. But without the right weather conditions -- cool temperatures, high humidity, calm winds -- our efforts are largely in vain. The Smokey Bear crusade,which has been with most of us for as long as we can remember, has been perhaps the most successful publicity campaign in the history of this country. As a result, we all just know that forest fires are bad. But while Smokey's origins and intent are understandable, his message was at least partially misguided. Not only is fire normal and natural in forest ecosystems, it's very likely essential. We must face the simple fact that tens of thousands of years of evolution, forest dynamics, and natural processes have an inherent rightness. As soon as we think we know better than nature, we're probably wrong.