My wife recently gave me "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan, a compelling story about the great forest fire of 1910 and how it shaped American thinking on forests and natural resources. Living in the middle of national forest, it is an important story for all of us on the mountain.

The background of the fire is the movement west after the civil war and the exploitation of public lands. The fight that emerged was between the great private interests intent on using public lands for personal profit, and the gradually developing group of conservationists who wanted public lands to be preserved for public benefit.

Against this background came two huge figures, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot, both east coast patricians who loved the outdoors, loved the west, and were passionate about conservation. As president, Roosevelt acted to protect public lands and vigorously fought the wealthy interests who wanted to control them. The younger Pinchot, a trained forester, was his advisor, and then the first chief of the new Forest Service.

Sadly, William Howard Taft succeeded Roosevelt as president in 1908. Taft assured Teddy before taking office that he shared his conservationist views, but when he was president he began to back away from them. Pinchot was fired, and the Forest Service purposefully underfunded

Then came the fire. Springtime in the Bitterroot Mountains in 1910 brought no rain, and by August the forest was dry and brittle. Lightening and sparks from the railroads caused hundreds of fires. Rangers hiked into the wilderness to put them out, but there were too many, and they eventually merged into a great fire across a huge swath of Northern Idaho and Western Montana. Tornadic winds knocked down acres of huge trees and sent embers swirling miles ahead. Rangers and black soldiers fought heroically but it could not be stopped. When it was over more than a hundred people were dead and 3 million acres destroyed.

Having the country's attention, Pinchot and Roosevelt successfully made the case to the American people that the fire had been caused by the underfunding of the Forest Service and the greed of the great land barons. Conservationist spirit swept congress, and within a year the budget of the Forest Service was doubled, and eastern hardwood forests were brought into the national forest system.

Egan tells us that the positive outcome of the fire was the final public and political acceptance that the great forests should be under national care. The negative outcome, however, was that the Forest Service, having gained acceptance from the great fire, now saw its primary mission as the suppression all fires. The policy of eliminating natural and regenerative fires from the landscape led to the overgrowth of our present forests, with accompanying horrendous fires from the fuel buildup.

The Forest Service has long since acknowledged its mistake. New policy reflects a much greater understanding of fire's role in the ecosystem, the danger of overcrowded forests, and the need for fuel reduction projects. Our Forest Service district is busy with many such projects and has two very large ones, Thomas Mountain and Santa Rosa, on the way. I hope that our entire community understands and supports these projects. Reducing the fuel load is essential to preventing catastrophic fires. We should do it before an uncontrolled fire does it for us.