For the last 100 years, government agencies have been diligently suppressing fires in forests in western states. While that policy has been well-intentioned, it was misinformed. Scientists have learned that over the past decades, fires are a necessary component for healthy forests.
The unfortunate outcome is that today, we now have a huge backlog of forests that are far too overgrown and primed for devastating fires. The large wildfires we are experiencing now make up for the smaller, more frequent fires that would have occurred naturally.
This is the main culprit for the thick smoke we've all had to breathe for several days this summer and last summer. While there are no easy solutions on how to address both the growing wildfires and bad air quality due to wildfire smoke, a greater understanding of how smaller, more frequent wildfires occur in nature is at least a good place to start.
