I g ni ti n g f or
th e f ut ure
By Kelly Kenoyer
NIGHT BURN OPERATIONS NEAR THE DALLES, OR ON AUG. 16, 2013
I
t’s like something out of Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451 — firefighters set trees
ablaze and fan flames across the grassland.
This is the cutting edge in wildfire manage-
ment and forest ecology: prescribing fires as
medicine for sick forests.
Fire was a political tool in Bradbury’s novel
— a means of destroying literature and control-
ling the population. Today, wildfire and prescribed
fire are politicized as well. What once was a force
of nature is now beaten back, choked out and
stamped by the great paws of Smokey Bear.
For more than a hundred years in the West, the
U.S. Forest Service and its battalions of firefight-
ers have held the untamable at bay, waging war
against nature itself each time a dry forest caught
alight.
But researchers and ecologists have realized
that fire is instrumental to the health of forests
and prairies alike, and now Oregon is struggling
to rewind the clock and restore forests and other
ecosystems to their pre-pioneer health.
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY PHOTO BY J. PRICHER
eugeneweekly.com • June 22, 2017
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