Hellroaring Creek meanders through the remote northern area of Yellowstone National Park, away from the deluge of tourists, who are more concerned with geysers. This tranquil waterway offers a respite for hikers and fishermen eager for nature’s still sounds and clear air.

Joe Fox fished there and knew the peace it offered, which was why this former firefighter found the infamous 1988 fire so hard to accept. At the time, he was a smokejumper from Idaho, a duty that includes parachuting into fires in remote areas.

That fire, which drew national news coverage, consumed 36 percent of the park, including 1.2 million acres and nearly 80 structures. It obliterated everything in its path.

For Fox, the ecological toll was alarming, but the emotional toll was just as rough.

“Fire is a disheartening thing,” he said. “I went there two years later to see how it was, and the whole thing had been burned up. It was very sad. But it was five or six years later when I went back again; things were sprouting back, and it was looking normal again.”

Fox has since retired and is the president of Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, or FUSEE, in Eugene, Ore. FUSEE is an organization that believes sound ecological protection helps save the lives of firefighters who battle these blazes.

Fox’s organization, while an advocacy group, also works in collaboration with other groups to educate the public about forest fires. What was once considered a pernicious force of nature is now thought of as a quintessential part of a healthy ecosystem.

But the fire issue remains controversial because of public misconceptions and short-term politics. The struggle embodies a two-front war on fire: one with homeowners who live among the trees and another with politicians who create policy that affects the annual fire season directly.

Fire Redefined

The father of conservation, Gifford Pinchot, built the foundation of forest policy. He began the U.S. Forest Service while working under Theodore Roosevelt. While Pinchot valued preserving forests, in 1905, he wrote, “The best way for the government to promote [conservation] is to protect the forest reserves from fire.”

What ensued was perpetual fire suppression that grew more advanced and efficient as technology progressed.

“It’s ironic,” said Don Dickmann, professor emeritus of forestry and fire at Michigan State University. “Gifford Pinchot invented conservation. But he was an advocate of keeping fire out of the woods. He had good intentions. You can’t look down your nose and say, ‘That was stupid policy.’ They had an imperfect understanding of what was going on out there.”

Pinchot’s fire suppression created denser forests over time that transformed fire from a managable natural phenomenon to an uncontrollable fury. That era was pivotal in fire policy.

Since then, a new dialogue less focused on suppression and prevention and more focused on accepting and networking has arisen.

The idea of networking is to involve every resident and community member to solidify the firefight through education.

“I can prepare all I want by taking out the undergrowth from my backyard, but if my neighbor doesn’t do the same, than it won’t make a difference if there’s a fire,” Dickmann said. “That’s a problem that is basically not fixable. We don’t live in a country that says ‘thou can’t do this or can’t do that.’ These programs are designed to reach out and educate.”

In conjunction with Firewise, one of the most popular and successful fire networking programs in the country, Dickmann presents educational seminars to homeowners, public officials and firefighters using educational software.

“We have had great responses from communities that have taken steps to mitigate the situation and understand their risk,” said Amy Schneider, the national spokesperson for Firewise, which has certified around 90 American communities as “fire wise,” or devoted to the network’s programs.

“Some of the challenge we constantly face is the commitment to dothe work,” Schneider said. “This isn’t a short-term, one-time thing where you have them rake the leaves. It’s asking for a behavioral change and seeking a commitment.”

A National Debate

In December 2003, President Bush signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, an aggressive new policy that effectively abandoned Pinchot’s extreme conservationism.

The result was a radical shift from Pinchot’s idea of preserving trees at any cost, to Bush’s idea of preventing forest fires by chopping down all the trees.

Bush’s departure from Pinchot’s conservationism is actually a forest plan modeled after capitalism. The federal government will not pay for cleaning out a forest’s underbrush and small trees, so it gave that responsibility to logging companies.

Loggers are given no incentives to comply with the rules and are given access to large and fire-resistant trees, some of which are old-growth. In these free market forests, thick, towering trees may be expended for the clearing of fire-fueling underbrush.

“Bush would have you think that 190 million acres of forest are at risk,” said Matthew Koehler, director of the Native Forest Network in Missoula, Mont. “It seems that the whole debate has come down to ‘we got to cut down more trees,’ but that is so missing the point.”

Fox, who was a smokejumper for nearly two decades, agrees. “What is galling is they log in the name of fire and firefighters, and that’s unethical,” he said. “In the name of fixing things, they will cherry pick the trees, maybe protect a community here and there, but they probably won’t do any good. This is a crisis we’re talking about.”

Timothy Ingalsbee, Fox’s colleague, directs the Western Fire Ecology Center.

“Bush billed his Healthy Forest Initiatives as wildfire prevention, but we need to see more fire in the forests, not less,” Ingalsbee said. “It’s not prevention we need, but preparation. That means a fire-permeable landscape. Ambitious? No, it was a way of life among [Native Americans] for thousands of years. The last century has been a complete anomaly.”

Environmental groups prefer the approach of networks like Firewise to the sweeping changes enacted by the Bush Administration.

“We believe effective education should be directed to homeowners and community members,” Koehler said. “All research and science say the best way to protect them is to focus on the home and the immediate surroundings.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service has stepped up its “treatment” of forests. The U.S. Forest Service, with the help of loggers, cleared 4.2 million acres in 2004, doubling their operation from 2002, which was more than 2 million acres.

Those who study forests generally agree that thinning is needed to strengthen forests that help allay wildfires back into the calmer flames they once were. But some worry that thinning will be done incorrectly.

“Different forests have different fires. Legislation that universally says that fire is good or bad can be dangerous,” said Monique Rocca, who studies forests at Colorado State University. “I take objection to the idea that every forest in the U.S. needs to be thinned.”

Dickmann said educational networks like Firewise address the local front in the war on fire through its emphasis on regionalism and continuity, whereas federal legislation acts as a one-time blanket.

“Long-term policy for forests is basically non-existent, which is why this is so important. Two years from now, Bush will be out and someone else in, maybe with some other ideas,” he said. “It’s clear that if we continue to have these horrible fire seasons, like these past few years, something will be done. But if there are no fires, people tend to forget. We are a species with short memories."

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Brian Foley graduated with a master’s in journalism at Michigan State University in 2005. He is now a reporter for The Daily Review in Hayward, Calif.