As parts of the country typically unaffected by wildfires have been blanketed in smoke in recent months, experts are turning to a centuries-old practice as one way to help manage increasingly severe forest fires.
At the root of the problem, experts say, is the longtime policy of fire exclusion: keeping fire out of the forest. , putting out fires as soon as they start. While that successfully reduced the amount of forest burned, over time it led to a buildup of highly flammable dead trees and brush on the forest floor. in Missoula, Montana, where they study how fire behaves in the forest. He says that buildup, also known as fuel, is leading to larger, hotter fires.
A cutaway of a centuries-old ponderosa pine killed by a recent fire shows decades of fire scars suddenly stop around the time the policy of fire suppression began.Indigenous AmericansAfter the U.S. removed the tribe from the land and began the practice of excluding fire from the forest, many trees didn't see a fire for a century or more.
"Where we're standing right now is really far away from any living trees that survived the fire," Davis said. Dying seedling replanted in Montana's Bitterroot Forest at Rye Creek.Davis says unlike mature trees, which can handle warmer, drier conditions, today's climate makes it hard for seedlings to establish themselves in areas that are warmer than they were 50 years ago.
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