Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy [Paperback]

George Wuerthner (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1597260703 | ISBN-13: 978-1597260701 | Publication Date: July 7, 2006 | Edition: 1

Wildfires are an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon that have shaped North America's landscapes since the dawn of time. They are a force that we cannot really control, and thus understanding, appreciating, and learning to live with wildfire is ultimately our wisest public policy. With more than 150 dramatic photographs, "Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy" covers the topic of wildfire from ecological, economic, and social/political perspectives, while also documenting how past forest policies have hindered natural processes, creating a tinderbox of problems that we are faced with today. More than 25 leading thinkers in the field of fire ecology provide in-depth analyses, critiques, and compelling solutions for how we live with fire in our society. Using examples, such as the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the ever-present southern California fires, and the Northwest's Biscuit Fire of 2002, the book examines the ecology of these landscapes and the policies and practices that affected them and continue to affect them, such as fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging, and land-use planning. Overall, the book aims to promote the restoration of fire to the landscape and to encourage its natural behaviour so it can resume its role as a major ecological process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reader advisory: This hefty, beautifully illustrated book — about as wide as a 25-year-old Doug fir stump — is likely to piss off the following: timber companies, loggers, Forest Service firefighters, the Oregon Board of Forestry, OSU College of Forestry administrators, herbicide companies, Columbia Helicopters and everyone else invested in the Old Forestry view that people should "manage" nature''s wild forces in order to serve humanity''s material needs.
In that line of thinking, wildfire is bad; it steals valuable timber that could have been logged and converted into useful things like paper and houses. Thus the development of a "fire-military-industrial" complex linking the Forest Service to industry and siphoning billions of tax dollars to fight fires on public lands.
 
Today, ecologists recognize that fire suppression does incalculable damage to forests that have evolved with wildfire, hijacking their natural processes and helping turn them, slowly but surely, into tree farms. Which, not incidentally, is convenient for timber companies hankering to log in public forests, and for land grant universities such as OSU that get a cut of the timber revenue.
 
In Wildfire, a project of the Foundation for Deep Ecology, more than 25 fire ecology experts — including Eugene''s Timothy Ingalsbee — propose that wildfires are good, and that people''s attempts to control them ultimately backfire. "While this book is about fire policy and fire ecology, it is also a discussion of a much larger philosophical debate over the ultimate role and influence humans should have on natural landscapes," editor George Wuerthner states in the introduction.
 
EW was privy to an email string between Big Timber allies reacting to this book. "Makes a feller retch," former OSU forestry professor Mike Newton wrote. "These guys have money," replied Bob Zybach of Oregon Websites and Watersheds, a timber think tank of sorts. "I plan to finger and smudge a copy in the bookstore, and then not buy it," added Lebanon tree farmer Mike Dubrasich, who administers the right-wing forestry blog SOSForests.com.

 

Their reactions only confirm the deep schism in forestry circles over how to handle wildfire. Those who subscribe to the old utilitarian view are sure to hate Wildfire; those who are deep ecologists, or open to their ideas, are likely to find it a valuable reference. The photos are gorgeous, the writing passionate and the mission clear: Fire Smokey the Bear, and let the forests burn, baby.

(Kera Abraham Eugene Weekly 20061214)

"This aesthetically pleasing, well-written, and overall outstanding book is highly recommended for all collections."

(Patricia Ann Owens Library Journal 20060901)

"The book is a magnificent and magisterial production...Could it be an intellectual foundation for a future national wildfire institute -- in Los Alamos?"

(Roger Snodgrass Los Alamos Monitor 20061213)

"there''s nothing to compare to it, making it a recommended resource."

(Toby Ankus Bloomsbury Review 20061201)

"The history of fighting fires, the authors argue convincingly, has been self-defeating and based on unscientific assumptions about the role of fire in the contintent''s ecology...Equally convincing, perhaps, are the photographs on display in this volume."

(Ted Steinberg Science 20061013)

About the Author

Editor George Wuerthner is a professional photographer and the author of more than two dozen books on natural history and other environmental topics. He is currently the ecological projects director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Foundation for Deep Ecology, by arrangement with Island Press; 1 edition (July 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597260703
• ISBN-13: 978-1597260701
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 11.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,438,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fire and Healthy Ecosystems, March 14, 2007

By 

Scott M. Kruse "Biophysical Geographer" (Fresno, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy (Hardcover)

Contrary to Smokey T. Bear, fire is an integral part of healthy ecosystems. After a century of aggressive fire suppression and the myth of Smokey T. Bear, we now see clearly that fire is integral just as soils, sun, wind, water, insects, snow, ice and other natural processes. Put an increment borerer into a tree and you can read the fire history of an ecosystem back up to 3,000 years.

Core into soils, meadows and adjacent streams and you can often retrace almost 10,000 years of fire history in the sediments, buried logs and stumps. Learn the behavior of wildland fire in the presence of sun, upslope wind, rain, snow, clouds, humidity, katabtic winds and air temperature and you begin to catch a glimpse of how we have artificially imposed politics, wishful thinking and pseudoscience on wildland ecosystems.

Media and politicians speak of "catastrophic" and "charred" ecosystems, but fail to speak of the catastrophe of sprawling urban development imposed upon fire-maintained vegetation and soils. We live in wood houses with wood shake roofs and wonder why our houses burn when the surrounding air super heats.

We have made many mistakes with fire. The first mistake is labeling wildland ecosystems uninhabited "wilderness". As Kat Andersen reminds us in "Before The Wilderness," this was never wilderness, people have always lived here AND used fire as a tool to maintain healthy ecosystems for more than 10,000 years.

It was the European invasion that labeled fire as "bad" and Disney and Bambi who drove the message home. It is only through the dedicated work of scientists and wildland managers in places like Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone Natl Parks since 1970 that we have begun to understand the basic role of fire. The Leopold Commission in the early 1950s clearly identified the potential for large fires from all the biomass that was and continues to build up.

There is still a large residue who label fire as "bad," and don't understand the role of fire in healthy, resilant, durable ecosystems. Air Quality districts now impose their mandates on when to burn. This book is a must for the public, resource managers and urban residents.