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Wildfire suppression in the United States has had a long and varied history. For most of the 20th century, any form of wildland fire, whether it was naturally caused or otherwise, was quickly suppressed for fear of uncontrollable and destructive conflagrations such as the Peshtigo Fire in 1871 and the Great Fire of 1910. In the 1960s, policies ...
The success of wildfire suppression techniques is debated amongst the scientific community. A number of studies (produced during the 1990s) using Ontario government fire records compared either the number of fires or the average fire size between areas with and without aggressive fire suppression policies.
Since 1995, the US Forest Service has slowly incorporated burning practices into its forest management policies. [10] Fire suppression has changed the composition and ecology of North American habitats, including highly fire-dependent ecosystems such as oak savannas [54] [55] and canebrakes, [56] [57] which are now critically endangered ...
At this time in history fire was viewed as a threat to timber, an economically important natural resource. As such, the decision was made to devote public funds to fire suppression and fire prevention efforts. For example, the Forest Fire Emergency Fund Act of 1908 permitted deficit spending in the case of emergency fire situations. [4]
The benefits of forest management have been seen throughout history, and natives knew the dangers of letting forests become overly dense. [18] Fire was used to keep large areas of forest and mountains free of undergrowth for hunting or travel. It also was a tool to help manage natural resources such as food.
Wildland fire use, particularly controlled burns, is an intentional fire to improve the health of a forest. These fire cycles help maintain the diversity of habitats for all species in an ecosystem. These fires also save on suppression costs of fires. Suppression costs are the costs caused by wildfires that are not prescribed.
Fire history, the ecological science of studying the history of wildfires, is a subdiscipline of fire ecology. Patterns of forest fires in historical and prehistorical times provide information relevant to the vegetation pattern in modern landscapes.
Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a widespread manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was taken up to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories, thereby making travel easier and facilitating the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants that were important for both food and medicines. [6]