Knapsack: You, and only you, can manage your local brush

You may have noticed that Smokey Bear has changed his tagline.

In fact, it’s been different for years now, but with current news stories, it catches the ear differently.

Many of us grew up with Smokey saying, “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.” In recent years, it has been said in Sam Elliott’s rumbling tones, and in 2024 Brian Tyree Henry became the voice of the U.S. Forest Service mascot. But what they have been saying is, “Remember, only you can prevent wildfires.” Fires burning wild are the problem, not all fires in the forest.

After the Yellowstone fires of 1988, the entire approach of wilderness management began to change. It had been from “The Big Burn” of 1910 when the U.S.F.S. model was “put those fires out,” and Pulaski tools and smokejumpers all became part of the standard assumption of what a fire in the woods meant: a problem, to be extinguished.

Then the problem became one of our having done things too well. We put fires out all across the West, quickly and completely, which ended up allowing brush to build up in the understory of mature forests. Brush, AKA kindling. Fuel. Fire accelerant.

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Add in the simple biological fact that there are a number of trees and plants which actually benefit from the aftermath of fires, and we’ve come to the realization that controlled burns in some places, and yes, allowing forest fires to burn in others, means less total fire damage and ecosystem harm in general. Putting out every forest fire isn’t the ideal outcome, hence, “Remember, only you can prevent wildfires,” from our pal Smokey.

Now we see in Southern California some of the challenges in this same thinking in urban wildernesses and undeveloped lands. Brush cleared aggressively can look “unnatural” and jagged ended to a certain perspective, but it’s either clearing brush now, or feeding fires later in the dry season.

Before you think this is a western problem alone, I’ll note that we have the advantage of not seeing an annual “dry season” in Ohio, but brush and undergrowth and fuel loads can create challenges here, too, especially when there’s a drought running. Granville Township Fire Department has a Tanker 201 and a Grass 201 vehicle, and they’re not just for show. Brush fires may be more common in grasslands during our summers, but if it’s dry enough and the wind is blowing, they can spread. We have our own Fire Weather Watches or Red Flag Warnings.

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It’s worth noting that directly across from Ross IGA, on the other side of Main Street, was Beaver Field, the local baseball diamond. Yes, the woodlot south of the old Denison power plant. Frederick P. Beaver, a trustee of the college, would later donate a dorm built in his wife’s honor in 1925, but first he built a ball field. Now? You’d never guess. But that was an open field 70 years ago. That’s how fast second growth and scrub can shoot up.

We don’t have California’s problems in Our Fayre Village, but it’s worth learning from them before we have our own.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he’s been on a few fire lines swinging a Pulaski. Tell him how you keep your brush clear at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Knapsack: Wildfires aren’t just a western problem

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