There are two basic causes of
wildfires. One is natural, mainly through lightning, and the other is human activity. Controlled burns have a long history in wildland management. Fire has been used by humans to clear land since the Neolithic period. Fire history studies have documented regular wildland fires ignited by indigenous peoples in North America and
Australia prior to the establishment of colonial law and fire suppression. Native Americans frequently used fire to manage natural environments in a way that benefited humans and wildlife in forests and grasslands by starting low-intensity fires that released nutrients for plants, reduced competition for cultivated species, and consumed excess flammable material that otherwise would eventually fuel high-intensity, catastrophic fires.
North America The use of controlled burns in North America ended in the early 20th century, when federal fire policies were enacted with the goal of suppressing all fires. Fire suppression has changed the composition and ecology of North American habitats, including highly fire-dependent ecosystems such as oak savannas and canebrakes, which are now critically endangered habitats on the brink of extinction. In the Eastern United States, fire-sensitive trees such as the red maple are increasing in number, at the expense of fire-tolerant species like oaks.
Canada In the
Anishinaabeg Nation around the
Great Lakes, fire is a living being that has the power to change landscapes through both destruction and the regrowth and return of life following a fire. Human beings are also inexorably tied to the land they live on as stewards who maintain the ecosystems around them. Because fire can reveal dormant seedlings, it is a land management tool. Fire was a part of the landscapes of
Ontario until early colonial rule restricted indigenous culture in and across Canada. During colonization, large scale forest fires were caused by sparks from railroads and fire was used to clear land for agriculture use. The public perception of forest fires was positive because the cleared land represented taming the wilderness to an urban populace. The conservation movement, which was spearheaded by
Edmund Zavitz in Ontario, caused a ban on all fires, both natural wild fires and intentional fires. In the 1970s,
Parks Canada began implementing small prescribed burns. However, the scale of wildfires each year outpaces the acreage of land that is intentionally burnt. In the late 1980s, the
Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario began conducting prescribed burns on forested land which led to the creation of a prescribed burn program as well as training and regulation for controlled burns in Ontario. The government of British Columbia responded by committing to using controlled burns as a wildfire management tool.
United States The
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality began requiring a permit for farmers to burn their fields in 1981, but the requirements became stricter in 1988 following a multi-car collision in which smoke from field burning near
Albany, Oregon, obscured the vision of drivers on
Interstate 5, leading to a 23-car collision in which 7 people died and 37 were injured. This resulted in more scrutiny of field burning and proposals to ban field burning in the state altogether. With controlled burns, there is also a risk that the fires get out of control. For example, the
Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire, the largest wildfire in the history of
New Mexico, was started by two distinct instances of controlled burns, which had both been set by the
US Forest Service, getting out of control and merging. The conflict of controlled burn policy in the United States has roots in historical campaigns to combat wildfires and to the eventual acceptance of fire as a necessary ecological phenomenon. Following colonization of North America, the US used fire suppression laws to eradicate the indigenous practice of prescribed fire. This was done against scientific evidence that supported prescribed burns as a natural process. At the loss to the local environment, colonies utilized fire suppression in order to benefit the logging industry. The notion of fire as a tool had somewhat evolved by the late 1970s as the National Park Service authorized and administered controlled burns. Following prescribed fire reintroduction, the
Yellowstone fires of 1988 occurred, which significantly politicized fire management. The ensuing media coverage was a spectacle that was vulnerable to misinformation. Reports drastically inflated the scale of the fires which disposed politicians in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana to believe that all fires represented a loss of revenue from tourism. Paramount to the new action plans is the suppression of fires that threaten the loss of human life with leniency toward areas of historic, scientific, or special ecological interest. There is still a debate amongst policy makers about how to deal with wildfires. Senators
Ron Wyden and
Mike Crapo of Oregon and Idaho have been moving to reduce the shifting of capital from fire prevention to fire suppression following the harsh fires of 2017 in both states. Tensions around fire prevention continue to rise due to the increasing prevalence of climate change. As drought conditions worsen, North America has been facing an abundance of destructive wildfires. Since 1988, many states have made progress toward controlled burns. In 2021, California increased the number of trained personnel to perform controlled burns and created more accessibility for landowners.
Europe In the European Union, burning crop stubble after harvest is used by farmers for plant health reasons under several restrictions in cross-compliance regulations. In the north of
Great Britain, large areas of
grouse moors are managed by burning in a practice known as muirburn. This kills trees and grasses, preventing natural succession, and generates the mosaic of
ling (heather) of different ages which allows very large populations of
red grouse to be reared for shooting. The peat-lands are some of the largest carbon sinks in the UK, providing an immensely important ecological service. The government has restricted burning to the area but hunters have been continuing to set the moors ablaze, releasing a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere and destroying native habitat.
Africa The
Maasai ethnic group conduct traditional burning in
savanna ecosystems before the
rainy season to provide varied
grazing land for livestock and to prevent larger fires when the grass is drier and the weather is hotter. In the past few decades, the practice of burning savanna has decreased because rain has become inadequate and unpredictable, there are more frequent occurrences of large accidental fires and
Tanzanian government policies prevent burning savanna.
Australia Indigenous Australians have an extensive history of
traditional burning practices including cool burning or
fire-stick farming. These practices were often suppressed during colonial rule, and the continuing struggle for
land rights mean that Australian fire activity looks different today than before colonial intervention. However, the return of land rights to indigenous communities and changing governmental attitudes to indigenous practices ==See also==