What turned California forests into a tinderbox? Fire suppression, paradoxically | Valerie Trouet
It’s time to embrace ‘good fires’ and end the misguided policy of fire suppression
Before this unprecedented era of mega-blazes on the US west coast, California’s forests had a canny, ingenious way of avoiding destructive worst-case forest fire scenarios. By periodically removing the grasses, shrubs and young trees – known as the forest understory – California avoided fires growing to destructive intensities before the 20th century. The way this was done? Fire.
Every five to 15 years, groundfires would burn through the forest, killing off the undergrowth on a regular basis, thus removing the material that can act as tinder and
