San Diego Union-Tribune Letters to the editor
November 29, 2007

Lynn Gamble’s commentary about Native American burning in California (“California Indians and fire management,” Opinion, Nov. 21) provides us with insight into the limited management options available to Indians prior to contact with Euro-Americans. We believe, however, there is need for clarification of some issues by firefighters and fire scientists more knowledgeable about wildland fire issues in the region. Although Gamble rightly points out that many native plants require fire to complete their life cycle, she fails to recognize that many of these same species are eliminated when the environment burns at the high fire frequency she suggests Native Americans facilitated. Native Americans burned to modify the natural landscape for human use, not for the purpose of managing for the sustainability of chaparral communities.

Evidence for Native American burning is for localized management within a half-day’s walk from villages, not that they were able to reduce the severity and frequency of uncontrolled wildfires. There is little reason to believe Native Americans could prevent the occurrence of large wildfires on the broader landscape. Indeed, one ethnographic report is of a massive wildfire in San Diego County prior to the time of European contact that resulted in a significant migration of Native American residents to the desert.

Gamble refers to “controlled burns” but it should be noted that decades ago fire agencies replaced that term with “prescribed burns,” in part because of the recognition that these fires often escape control. Firsthand experience has demonstrated that trying to “control” a wildland fire is problematic at best, especially under unpredictable weather conditions that frequent Southern California. Such would likely have been the case with Native Americans as well.

The notion that establishing a Native American burning regime would prevent catastrophic fires such as we observed last month is demonstrably incorrect based on the reburning of 100,000 acres scorched during 2002 and 2003 fires. Instead of basing fire management practices on incomplete records from prehistory, we need to look forward and formulate plans based on fire science.

Adding more fire to a landscape that already suffers from too much is neither desirable for the natural resources nor a realistic option for preventing catastrophic fires.

RICHARD W. HALSEY
California Chaparral Institute
Escondido

© Copyright 2007 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. • A Copley Newspaper

Posted on November 29th, 2007 by hunwut
Filed under: Moron Alert, Opinion, Wild Fires