Evolution and History of Fire Thesis

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We have never prescribed a "let-it-blow policy for tornadoes and hurricanes, a "let-it-erupt" policy for volcanoes or a "let-it-grind" policy for glaciers. Why, then, did we need a "let-it-burn" policy for fires, or surrogate strategies like prescribed fire? Humans and fire have an inseparable history." (p.5) Agee states that the classical view of the succession of plants "...persisted much of the 20th century: the Clementsian view of regional convergence towards a vegetation life-form created by autogenic succession in the presence of stable climate." (p.6)

Agee relates that the primary obstacle to conducting an "appropriate economic analysis of fire in wilderness as understanding "the natural state" was defined by Mills in 1985 who held that the objective of wilderness policy then would be to "allow resource change to be viewed as cost or benefit." (p. 14) Agee reports that in 1983 the Wilderness Fire workshop was held in Missoula in which the major issues of that time were defined by Brown as well as others and that more than 100 papers and posters "were presented at the conference" and of these issues there were five primary issues addressed including those as follows:

(1) the "natural fire" issue -- what is natural;

(2) the "Indian fire" issue;

(3) the "lightning (prescribed natural fire) versus human (prescribed fire)" issue;

(4) the "fire size and intensity" issue; and (5) the "unnatural fuel buildup" issue.

None of these issues were resolved at this specific time however a great deal of discussion and debate ensued.

VI. FEDERAL WILDLAND FIRE Management POLICY & PROGRAM REVIEW (1986)

The 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review effectively changed the ..."nomenclature of fire management but firmly endorsed Wildland Fire Use for Resource Benefit (WFU) as an appropriate response to natural fire. So strong was the wording of the policy that federal fire managers

VII. 2001 REVIEW OF FIRE POLICY

In 2001 another review was undertaken and fire policy updated with directions that

"wildland fire will be used…and, as nearly as possible, be allowed to function in its natural ecological role," and the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, developed to implement the National Fire Plan in 2002, established a goal to restore, rehabilitate, and maintain "fire adapted ecosystems.

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" (2006, p.13)

Figure 2

Number of Wildland Fire Use events on National Park Service and USDA Forest Service Lands, 1994 through October 2005

Source: Aplet (2006)

Barriers to implementation of the prescribed fire policy are identified as being:

(1) Attitudinal;

(2) political; and (3) Institutional. (Aplet, 2006, p.14)

Agee reports that the "nature of scientific challenges" in wildland fire management are differentiated by the "fire regime. While both ecological and behavioral issues remain for all fire regimes, the ecological ones appear largely in low and moderate-severity fire regimes, while the behavioral ones dominate the high-severity fire regimes." (, p.17) Agee additionally states that the "accuracy of fire behavior models is highly dependent on good fire weather information. Recent fire model applications (Keane and others 1996a) continue to note the lack of good weather information for wilderness. In some areas, there is no local information at all. Our future requirements are not only for longer-term local weather, but for very specific parameters on hourly time steps, if we want to accurately predict future fire (within limits, of course) or even reconstruct historic events." (, p.17)

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

It is necessary that wilderness fire research be funded in an ongoing manner so as to enable research and public education concerning the benefits that wilderness ecosystems derived from fire. It will be necessary that not only the public become more informed about the necessity of wildland fires but that air quality regulators as well understand so as to develop policies that not only address the health concerns of humans due to the impact of smoke but also in order to address the necessity of sustaining healthy ecosystems in the nation's….....

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