Big fires demand a big response: How 1910’s Big Burn can help us think smarter about fighting wildfires and living with fire

The US has learned that it cannot suppress its way to a healthy relationship with fire in the West. That strategy failed, even before climate change proved it to be no strategy at all.

By: William Deverell, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Elizabeth A. Logan, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: September 13, 2026

Words: 1,156

Last Updated: 1 month ago

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By William Deverell, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Elizabeth A. Logan, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Over two days in the summer of 1910, wildfires roared across the bone-dry forests of the inland Northwestern U.S., the Rockies, and parts of British Columbia. Whole towns burned. The blazes scorched 3 million acres of forest, an area the size of Connecticut, and left behind a legacy that profoundly changed how …

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