A little fire is quickly trodden out,

which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.

—Shakespeare, Henry IV (Qtd. in Pyne, 1982)

Fire Perception and Policy

In 1894, a firestorm ripped across northern Minnesota causing so much damage to private property and human life that a grieving chronicler rated it “the most horrible calamity which has befallen any portion of the human race in modern times” (Brown, 1894). That fateful day in Hinckley, Minnesota, locals breathed in the blue haze that regularly dimmed the sun from fires in the pines. There were more fires burning at this point than in most years, but these hardy folk had weathered similar summers past. Even when a red glow grew on the horizon, they took faith in their well-trained and well-equipped Fire Brigade. The first wave of heat, driven before a 60mph straight-line wind, came before they could have expected it. Many died instantly.

This fire was no ordinary fire. As Elton Brown, a contemporary, observes, “Ordinary fires run along the ground, burning underbrush and fallen limbs, doing little damage to the trees used for lumber; in some of the worst parts of this fire, the only thing that remained was the clay subsoil and various rocks.” This was a large fire, and “a ‘large’ fire is more than simply a ‘small’ fire on a bigger scale” (Carroll and Raiter, 1990). It creates its own weather, sending hot air high into the atmosphere by convection and drawing in fresh air at its base. “The smoke becomes black, indicating that the fire is burning so violently that the wood is no longer being burned efficiently. The eerie phenomena of ‘firewhirls,’ ‘tornadic whirls,’ and ‘horizontal roll vertices’ (or horizontal tornadoes) may occur” (Carroll and Raiter, 1990). This has led to popular descriptions of sheets or tongues of flame that ignite the air, itself.

Brown’s friend describes the firestorm’s emotional impact: “If Dante had seen a glen like this, at a time like this, he would have been able to describe a Hell which would have put a fear of God into the hearts of his readers and no mistake.” Further firestorms like this one ripped through Minnesota and the rest of America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Francis Carroll, with added temporal perspective, describes the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire of 1918 (merely 24 years after the Hinckley blaze) as “the greatest calamity ever to occur in northern Minnesota…The ordeal affected thousands, and the experience stamped a whole generation.” Fires such as these did strike fear into the American public, especially those who lived nearest to the great northern pineries.

In 1898, when the Forest Service still wielded only advisory powers, Gifford Pinchot, its head, warned that “like the question of slavery, the question of forest fires may be shelved for some time, at enormous cost in the end, but sooner or later it must be met” (Qtd. in Pyne, 1982). Upon gaining executive power over the U.S. forest reserves, the new agency made fire control its fundamental obligation to the American people. This started the ball rolling on 70 years of single-minded fire prevention.

In the first decade of the 1900s fires were the responsibility of solitary rangers, who often had only the power to raise a citizen posse in case of a dangerous blaze. Two theories of fire suppression emerged out of necessity. The first, conceived by Coert DuBois, detailed an action-oriented plan of attack for forest fires. His book, Systematic Fire Protection in the California Forests, makes the sweeping generalization that all fires are bad and should be snuffed out in their infancy. A somewhat more level-headed Roy Headley proposed an economic plan of attack that would carry out cost-benefit analyses before any fire was fought. His idea: if more money is used to suppress a fire than the trees are worth, this constitutes a net loss. Some fires should be allowed to burn. Unfortunately, in the crisis atmosphere of fire-fighting, Headley’s plan of valuation was proven impractical (Pyne, 1982).

Huge amounts of money willing allotted from the U.S. treasury went into the war against wildfire. In the era of the New Deal, the Forest Service gained roads, trails, fire towers, and other valuable fire-fighting infrastructure from government grants and the labor of the CCC. The logic of cost-benefit analysis lost its largest battle in 1935, when the 10am Policy was adopted forest-wide. It was “a simple fire code based on time principles, which directed that each fire should be controlled before the next day’s burning period, that is, by 10am” (Evan Kelley, qtd. in Pyne, 1982). The Policy in its simplicity removed all debate on the morality and practicality of fighting fire. It merely mandated how fervently it should be done.

The 10am Policy was developed in a time of emergency, and the Forest Service sought to maintain that original sense of crisis to ensure its continued funding. The focus of crisis changed over the years, from destruction of resource capital to a threat to national security. During World War II the Service became more tightly linked to the military. “Wildfire tended to be typed as enemy fire” (Pyne, 1982). War policies transitioned smoothly to Cold War policies, and the Forest Service found itself researching the physics of fires caused by both conventional and nuclear bombs (Carroll, 1990). The Forest Service had become the fire service. And “as it became more entrenched as a firepower, the Forest Service became more estranged from public interest” (Pyne, 1982).

The tide changed in the wake of the environmental movement. Abruptly in 1972, the Forest Service tie to military research was formally broken, and in 1974 it turned its focus away from fire control and towards fire management. In 1978, the 10am Policy was omitted from a more pluralistic fire manual that allows economic and ecological factors to be taken into account by each individual forest ranger (Pyne, 1982).

New among the tools on a ranger’s belt is the increasingly popular Wildland Fire Use (WFU). Defined as “a naturally ignited wildland fire managed to accomplish specific pre-stated resource management objectives,” WFU categorically excludes crisis-bred decision-making (National Fire Plan, qtd. in Dale, 2006). A Fire Management Plan already needs to exist that specifies burning the area that then catches fire. Unfortunately this policy, though level-headed, still makes it more difficult to let a fire burn than to suppress it. WFU, however, is a step in the right direction for ecosystems such as those of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that need a regular fire regime. The Forest Service has come a long way since it declared domestic war on all forest fire. Go on to Natural History... or Back Home.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.macalester.edu/geography/mage/urban/hinckley/mainstafterfire.jpg