Because of economic interests, major efforts are made to suppress fires. Yet, because smoke is a temporary nuisance, people in suburban neighborhoods complain when forest managers attempt prescribed burns that would avoid the major fires that will ultimately occur. Unnatural fire control has been detrimental to natural systems whose flora and fauna have evolved to deal with periodic fires. We are now finding they can be detrimental to us, too. Forest management policies that fail to recognize the role of fire in sustaining fire-adapted species may increase the risk to humans as well as to native wildlife.
Fire is a natural event in many regions, perceived only by humans as a disaster.
The threat of forest fires will always be with us, as long as we have forests with combustible material. Anyone with a house in the fire's path may not agree with the last position. Whit Gibbons is a senior research scientist with the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Lab.