For centuries, European settlers envisioned the North American wilderness as a pristine, untouched paradise. They were wrong.
A story of how a continent was actively formed by "forgotten fires," and how their suppression led to the wildfire crises we face today.
Imagine a forest not of dense, impenetrable thickets, but a landscape that resembled a "well-tended garden" — a mosaic of open grasslands, stately groves of oak, and forests clear of underbrush 7 . This was the North American continent witnessed by early explorers, a landscape that was not pristine but profoundly shaped by its original inhabitants. For millennia, Native Americans used fire as a primary tool for land management, cultivating a wilderness that was both productive and resilient.
For decades, the dominant narrative in Western culture was that of an untouched, primeval wilderness awaiting European discovery 6 . This perception, immortalized in the works of authors like Henry David Thoreau, ignored the extensive land management practices that had been in place for thousands of years.
The landscape that early explorers encountered was the cumulative result of indigenous cultural burning, a sophisticated practice that created a mosaic of grasslands and forests to sustain cultures and economies 6 . The well-documented open, park-like forests described by early colonists were not a natural phenomenon but a carefully maintained one 4 .
European colonization brought a radical disruption to these ancient practices 6 . Settlers who witnessed tribes setting fires perceived it as a primitive or destructive act, failing to understand its ecological role 7 . This fundamental misunderstanding led to policies that criminalized traditional burning.
California passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which outlawed intentional burning 7 .
One early U.S. forest ranger suggested that people who set fire to the land should be shot 7 .
Native Americans were removed from ancestral lands, severing the deep connection between people and the landscape they had maintained for generations 6 .
This suppression was coupled with the forced relocation of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, severing the deep connection between people and the landscape they had so carefully maintained for generations 6 . The "well-tended garden" began to vanish, replaced by the densely packed forests we recognize today.
For a long time, the extent of Indigenous burning was a subject of debate, with some scholars dismissing its broad landscape impact due to a lack of physical evidence 1 . However, modern scientific techniques are now confirming what Indigenous oral histories have long asserted.
Fire-scarred trees analyzed in a pivotal study by Christopher Roos 5
Years of fire history reconstructed (1500-1900) 5
Tribal territories studied: Apache, Navajo, and Jemez 5
The researchers compared the tree-ring fire records with paleoclimate records. In most forests, a clear pattern emerges: several wet years of abundant plant growth are followed by a dry year that provides the conditions for fire to burn. The team used a statistical method (superposed epoch analysis) to find significant deviations from this normal climate pattern 5 .
The findings were striking. For centuries, the typical climate-fire pattern was broken within Western Apache territory. Despite being a mobile population, their burning practices were so systematic that they effectively "weakened the link between climate conditions and fire activity" 5 . Fires in their homelands occurred more frequently and disproportionately in the spring, aligning with subsistence activities, and did not require the pre-condition of a major drought to ignite and spread 2 5 .
| Metric | Before Fire Suppression (with Cultural Burning) | After Fire Suppression (Without Cultural Burning) |
|---|---|---|
| Forest Canopy Density | Open, with canopies estimated at 40% or less 7 . | Densely packed, with canopy density now over twice as high in some areas 7 . |
| Fire Regime | Frequent, low-intensity, low-severity surface fires 6 . | Infrequent, high-intensity, high-severity "megafires" 7 . |
| Biodiversity | High biodiversity of understory plants, grasses, and wildlife 6 1 . | Reduced biodiversity as shade-tolerant species dominate; loss of fire-adapted plants 6 . |
| Fire-Climate Relationship | Weakened; fire activity was less dependent on climate conditions like drought 5 . | Strengthened; large fires are primarily driven by extreme climate/weather events 1 . |
The science of dating tree rings; used to determine the exact year of a fire event and to reconstruct past climate conditions 5 .
Cores extracted from lake beds containing layers of pollen and micro-charcoal; used to study broader changes in vegetation and fire activity 4 .
Today, as the Western United States grapples with increasingly destructive megafires, the wisdom of Indigenous fire practices is gaining renewed attention. The lack of "good fire" is now understood to be a major factor behind the infernos we face today 7 .
More holistic approach focused on revitalizing the land for specific cultural purposes, such as promoting the growth of hazelnut shrubs for basket-weaving or encouraging oak trees for acorn production 7 .
"Cultural burning is part of a generational cycle, looking seven generations, basically 120 years down the road." - Ron W. Goode, Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe 7
Modern agency approach often focused on fuel reduction and meeting acreage targets. While beneficial for wildfire risk reduction, may lack the cultural and ecological depth of traditional practices.
Typically planned for specific fuel reduction objectives with shorter-term ecological considerations.