“An unmanaged forest, one without the sort of fire control we attempted to provide, would naturally burn every few years. The undergrowth would build up, reach a critical mass, some source of ignition would come along — usually lightning — and all that undergrowth would burn. The redwoods themselves would be scarred but not really threatened, as we could see from the charring that marked them from countless such fires over centuries. Of course burning undergrowth threatened homes and property, too, so there was a natural desire on the part of that community to want the next burn to not come this year, please not this year. So there came a policy of aggressively fighting fires with the result that we eventually faced 60 (now 90!) years of flammable material growth rather than six or eight years. And the probable fire fueled by 60 years of undergrowth would have been so bad that our job changed to one of trying to prevent fires from happening, well, ever. This was an impossible task, of course. Eventually the stars would align the wrong way and the whole place would burn down, we all knew it. Just let it not happen on our watch.

Does this sound familiar?”