The fires burning in the heart of the Northwest are not just global climate change in action. They are the climax of a tale of Europeans taking over and ignoring the ecological prudence of the native peoples.

The ecological story underlying the unprecedented fires in the Pacific Northwest also arises from two centuries of ecological changes to our forests and rangelands.

In a 2003 paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, scientists Paul Hessburg and James Agee document in great detail the causes of ecosystem changes in the Northwest and give key insights in the historically large and severe fires we are experiencing.

Both Hessburg and Agee point out early in the piece that Native Americans practiced intensive burning for the purpose of stimulating natural plant growth. In particular, they used fire to stimulate growth of grass for pasturage, fruits and edible plants for cultivation, and to maintain paths and clearings for travel.

To speed this history lesson along, let’s fast forward from these halcyon days of humans employing the forces of nature, to us conquering these local surroundings.

With the arrival of European settlers both unfamiliar and afraid – for the most part – of burning techniques, human relationships with fires drastically changed.

According to Mark E. Swanson, an associate professor at the WSU School of the Environment, the practices of Northern Europeans accustomed to damp temperate climates and averse to fire radically differed from that of the natives.

“It became like holding a tiger’s tale. As you hold on to the tale, it gets angrier and angrier until you can’t hold it. Then it just goes wild,” Swanson said.

Low and mid elevation forests became stressed and experienced large volumes of insect activity as a result of European silviculture, Swanson said.

The story, multilayered and continuous, involves of mixture of ecologically poor practices. This includes but is not limited to extensive logging, dense planting of tree farms, and the lack of controlled burnings that once maintained the health of many local forests.

Step by step, this tale of environmental malpractice looks like this: First, European American settlers cut down many of the ancient trees highly resistant to fires. This allowed smaller trees to begin growing due to new access to sunlight. Unlike the old and hardy trees, they are closer to the ground and more susceptible to fires in the brush.

Additionally, these smaller trees began to grow more densely around older trees, creating multiple stories in the forested patches. These multiple stories act like the many layers of bonfires. The fire starts below and travels upward to create a veritable inferno.

Second, settlers began planting vast tree farms of one species to create paper. This caused, in the words of Swanson, native tree pests to “act like invasives.” The dead trees, large and small, formed new beds of plant matter on forest floors. This dead and dry matter provided more – excuse the cliché – fuel for the fire.

Finally, tree clearing for roads, agriculture and construction again created opportunity for shorter, denser forests to grow and provide ampler opportunity for fires to run amok. This, combined with unwillingness to proactively burn away brush, provided the remaining foundation for the unprecedented fires we are currently experiencing.

Global climate change, which is indeed happening before our eyes, threatens to make the already dry Palouse even drier.

The EPA, based off a 2009 U.S. Global Climate Research Program, predicts that by the 2040s the Pacific Northwest will possess 40 percent less water from snow runoff. Since streams not only water the ground but also provide natural fire barriers, this threatens to give wildfires even larger ranges.

In short, this summer of extraordinary fire represents both an anomaly and the result of continuous human mismanagement of this beautiful region.

For almost two centuries we have wantonly ignored the patterns, practices and wisdom of the first peoples of the Palouse and Northwest. To our detriment, we continue to not only mutate the ecology of this land for our own consumptive purpose but also its climate patterns.

Now is the time to discuss, with candor, not only our ecological sins but also our chances for penance and reconciliation with the environment.

Tyler Laferriere is a first year master’s student in applied economics and statistics from Phoenix, Ariz. HE can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of the Office of Student Media.