Fighting Fire with Fire
- Jim Chamberlin
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Fire! Just this one word can strike panic. Fire can be devastating, as history has shown.
On September 1, 1894, a wildfire spread across a quarter million acres in Minnesota. Over just four hours, it burned a half-dozen communities to the ground, with 418 confirmed dead, and many more not accounted for. The Hinckley Fire Museum website describes it like this: “ A fire, driven by nearly endless fuel and tornadic winds became a rare firestorm, with flames four and half miles in the sky. People as far away as Iowa thought the fire was close by.”
There have been many others. The Cloquet fire in 1918 burned a similar amount of acreage and some 38 communities were destroyed. Four hundred and fifty-three people died, and some 52,000 people were injured or displaced. The deadliest on record is the Peshtigo Fire, which burned as much as 1.5 million acres in Wisconsin on October 8, 1871. There were 1,152 verified deaths, with many more unaccounted for. The Peshtigo Fire began the same evening as the Great Chicago Fire, which claimed some 300 lives and destroyed some 17,450 buildings.
More recently, in early August 2023, wildfires in Hawaii killed 102 people and burned over 2,200 structures for an estimated economic loss of $5.5 billion. And, less than a year ago, in January 2025 southern California wildfires killed as many as 440 people, destroying more than 18,000 structures and burning almost 60,000 acres. Insurance claims paid out from these fires were estimated at $20 billion dollars, with total losses estimated at $50 billion.
The fire triangle, elements that create favorable conditions for fire, includes oxygen, fuel, and heat. What is common in all the instances mentioned above, was the fact that all the legs of the triangle were in place.
Unmanaged excessive vegetation, or, in the case of the early fires, residual fuels from poor forestry practices, created a large fuel load that was prime for fire due to extended drought.
Strong winds fanned the flames, giving ample oxygen for the fire to grow.
Hot weather conditions further dried the fuels and, once there was a spark, the fires canopied and spread rapidly.
Fire as a Means of Biomass Removal
So how can we work towards reducing the risk from wildfire damage to our natural resources, built infrastructure, and people? There is little we can do to control the heat and oxygen sides of the triangle, so that leaves us with fuel load. Reducing the fuel load can be accomplished in several ways; mechanical harvest of timber, forest mulching or mowing, herbicides to prevent woody plant spread, grazing and browsing by ruminants, or by fire itself.
Of these options, fire may be the most cost effective and actually fits well into the historical ecological context of much of our Midwest landscape.
The publication The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management describes how Indigenous peoples used fire from coast to coast, impacting and shaping plant communities.
On the west coast fire was used to create and maintain clearings in the redwood forests “too numerous to mention,” and to prevent encroachment of competing species into Sugar Pine stands.
It has long been recognized that fire helped to maintain the rich and abundant midwest tallgrass prairies and oaks savannahs.
The Menominee Tribe still manage for the “wellness of the forest” and use fire on sandy outwash soils to maintain early succession plant communities rich in edible plants.
And on the east coast, there is evidence that the dominance of oaks and chestnuts in the Appalachian forests were enhanced by indigenous burning.
Indigenous cultures realize the interdependence between humans and nonhuman species, and understand the reciprocal relationship we have with nature. They worked with fire to benefit both humans and nonhumans and understand that this reciprocity is both spiritual and pragmatic. Understanding this philosophy can help us be better stewards of the land, creating more abundant landscapes that can better adapt to our shifting climate, and reduce danger of extreme wildfire.
Fire, like grazing ruminants or a brush mower, consumes biomass and sets back the ecological succession of the plant community. In general, early succession plant communities are more diverse and host plants that are more edible, both by humans and our nonhuman relatives. Understanding how these systems functioned is often described as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).
Unlike many current conservation or restoration practices, which focus primarily on treating invasive species or other symptoms of degradation, TEK focuses on the historical disturbance regimes that shaped these communities and built resilient landscapes. While we can likely never return to the pristine landscapes that existed prior to colonization, using TEK will help to increase the diversity, resilience, and health of the land.
Get Involved and Resources
Happy Dancing Turtle is working with Pheasants Forever and others to support a local Prescribed Burn Association chapter for central MN. The PBA will work to educate people on the benefits of prescribed fire, train landowners on safe and effective burning practices, and serve to connect landowners to share in the work of conducting prescribed burns. If you would like more information about the Central MN PBA, contact Tyler Carlson at earlyboots@gmail.com, or Jim Chamberlin at jchamberlin@happydancingturtle.org.
For further information, check out Wisconsin Forestry Center at UW-Stevens Point's webinar - Fire and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Lake States from March 2024. And read up on TEK with "The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management"(Kimmerer, Lake, 2001, Journal of Forestry). And also this article from Project Optimist about the use of prescribed burns in Northeast Minnesota.
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