How Forestry Science Deniers Put Oregon’s Forests—and Communities—at Risk
Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn is more than the story of an enormous wildfire. It is the story of what happens when a young nation creates public forests but fails to provide the people responsible for them with enough manpower, infrastructure, equipment or political support to protect them.
A Note Before You Read
This is a longer piece than I usually publish because wildfire policy cannot be reduced to slogans or partisan blame. It examines the history behind today’s crisis, the failures exposed by Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day fires, and the modern tools available to detect, manage, and suppress fires before they become catastrophic. A 28 point appendix at the end includes direct links to official reports, historical accounts, forestry research, technology resources, and policy documents so readers can review the evidence and draw their own conclusions.
In the book’s published description, a “battering ram of wind” transforms hundreds of scattered fires into “a roaring inferno.” During roughly 36 hours in August 1910, approximately three million acres burned across Idaho, Montana and Washington. Towns were destroyed, at least 85 people died and the five-year-old U.S. Forest Service was nearly overwhelmed.
The disaster also transformed American forestry. Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot had fought to preserve millions of acres from corrupt land speculators, timber monopolies and political insiders. The fire helped secure the future of America’s national forests, but it also drove federal policy toward the aggressive suppression of nearly every wildfire.
Egan explained that Pinchot understood that fire “was part of the natural cycle,” even while promising Congress that the Forest Service could control it. That contradiction shaped more than a century of public-land policy.
The lesson of The Big Burn is not that every fire is evil. Nor is it that every forest should be logged.
The lesson is that public ownership without active stewardship is abandonment with better public relations.
From fire suppression to political paralysis
After 1910, the federal government built a remarkable detection and response system. Fire lookouts, telephone lines, trails, roads, firebreaks and dispatch stations were positioned throughout the West. During the 1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps crews expanded that network and helped create an organized system intended to detect smoke quickly and suppress fires before they could engulf entire landscapes.
That system was imperfect, but its objective was refreshingly clear: find the fire and get people on it before it becomes unstoppable.
Over time, forestry science revealed the unintended consequences of suppressing every fire. In many historically fire-adapted forests—particularly the drier forests east of the Cascades—removing regular low-intensity fire allowed small trees, brush and dead material to accumulate. Those fuels can carry flames from the forest floor into the crowns of larger trees.
But instead of applying that knowledge carefully, according to forest type and local conditions, the political pendulum often swung from one extreme to another.
One side began treating every tree as potential timber inventory. The other increasingly treated cutting almost any tree, maintaining almost any road or directly attacking certain naturally ignited fires as an ecological offense.
Neither position is forestry science, because Science is not “log everything.” nor is Science “touch nothing.”
Science requires examining the forest in front of you, understanding its historic fire regime, considering nearby communities and then choosing the appropriate combination of thinning, prescribed burning, habitat protection, fuel removal and rapid suppression.
The Forest Service reports that approximately 98 percent of wildfires are suppressed before they exceed 100 acres. That fact matters because it demonstrates that there is no universal federal policy literally ordering firefighters to let everything burn. Most ignitions are attacked successfully and never become news.
The problem is the remaining 2 percent.
Those are the fires that escape initial attack, find receptive fuels, encounter extreme weather and consume towns, watersheds and firefighting budgets. They are also the fires for which decades of political arguments, deferred maintenance and inadequate capacity suddenly become matters of life and death.
Oregon’s 2020 warning
Oregon received its own brutal history lesson during the Labor Day fires of September 2020.
Driven by historically dry fuels and powerful east winds, fires burned more than one million acres, destroyed more than 5,000 homes and businesses and killed 11 people. More than 40,000 Oregonians were forced to evacuate.
Not every one of those losses can be blamed on federal forest management. The Almeda Fire began as a grass fire and raced through Ashland, Talent, Phoenix and urban portions of Jackson County, destroying nearly 2,500 homes. That disaster demonstrates that community planning, vegetation management, utilities, evacuation routes, defensible space and fire-resistant construction are also essential.
But the Beachie Creek Fire offers a particularly important case study.
Beachie Creek began in the Willamette National Forest on August 16, 2020. It remained in steep, hazardous terrain until the historic September 7 windstorm drove it rapidly westward through federal forests, private lands and Santiam Canyon communities. It eventually encompassed more than 193,000 acres.
An official Forest Service decision document prepared shortly before the blowup described extremely steep terrain, dangerous snags and poor access. It also documented the fire growing from roughly 25 acres to approximately 150 acres over two days, while forecasts warned of hot temperatures, very low humidity and possible east winds.
The written strategy continued to identify the objective as full suppression, but the available tactics relied heavily on cameras, helicopters, indirect preparation and natural barriers because direct ground attack was considered unsafe.
Calling that a formal “let it burn” order would be inaccurate then pretending the operational result was satisfactory would be equally dishonest.
The fire remained active in remote timber for more than three weeks. When the wind arrived, the available strategy collapsed under conditions that had been forecast as a possibility.
That does not prove a hand crew could have safely extinguished Beachie Creek. Firefighters should not be ordered into terrain where falling snags, cliffs or fire behavior are likely to kill them. Criticism from an air-conditioned office is cheap; firefighting funerals are not.
The real question is why managers were left with such lousy choices.
Where were the remotely operated suppression tools? Where were the persistent thermal drones? Where was the round-the-clock aerial capacity? Where was the technology capable of identifying every hot spot, directing precision water drops and maintaining communications in inaccessible terrain?
When direct attack is too dangerous, the answer cannot simply be to watch a fire until the weather decides what happens next.
Trump was mocked for “raking”—but the underlying issue was real
After visiting the destruction in Paradise, California, in November 2018, President Donald Trump said Finland spent “a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things.”
The wording invited ridicule, and Finland’s president said he did not recall discussing literal forest raking. He said Finland relied upon a strong forest-surveillance system and network.
Trump mangled the explanation. His critics then used the awkward language to dismiss the entire subject.
Nobody is proposing that crews wander across millions of mountainous acres carrying lawn rakes from Home Depot.
But removing hazardous surface fuels, thinning overcrowded stands, eliminating ladder fuels, maintaining firebreaks, conducting prescribed burns and creating access for firefighters are legitimate forest-management practices. Calling all of that “raking” was imprecise. Pretending none of it matters was political malpractice.
Trump’s March 2025 timber order declared that forest-management and wildfire-risk-reduction projects can save communities. A subsequent June 2025 executive order directed agencies to develop a technology roadmap involving artificial intelligence, improved data sharing, fire-ignition detection, mapping and better forecasting. It also called for year-round readiness and removal of unnecessary barriers to appropriate prescribed burning.
Those are worthwhile objectives, but executive orders and political slogans do not extinguish fires.
The test is whether agencies can demonstrate faster detection, shorter response times, more acres treated, adequate staffing and fewer communities lost.
We dismantled an old network without fully replacing it
Fire lookouts were once the eyes of the forest.
A trained observer could distinguish smoke from dust, fog or logging operations; estimate its size and direction; triangulate its location with another tower; and immediately contact dispatch.
Some Oregon lookouts remain staffed or are occasionally used by fire personnel. Others were abandoned, removed or converted into recreational rentals as agencies shifted toward aerial patrols, public reports and satellite systems. The Lake of the Woods Lookout near Gold Beach, for example, was staffed during fire seasons from 1974 through 1996 and is now primarily a rental, although fire officers may still use it during severe conditions.
The mistake was not retiring every aging tower. Technology should replace obsolete equipment when it can perform the job better.
The mistake was allowing gaps in observation and communications while assuming satellites or occasional aircraft could replace persistent local surveillance.
Oregon has begun rebuilding that capability. As of October 2025, the Oregon Hazards Lab operated 70 wildfire cameras capable of rotating 360 degrees, tilting 220 degrees and zooming up to 40 times.
That is progress. It should be the foundation of a much larger, integrated system—not another pilot project celebrated at a press conference and quietly starved for operating money later.
Build a 21st-century fire detection network
Oregon and the federal government should establish overlapping layers of detection so that the failure of one system does not leave a region blind.
1. Modernize strategic fire lookouts
Not every historic tower must be rebuilt or staffed, but strategically located sites should be retained and equipped with:
- High-resolution, 360-degree optical cameras
- Thermal or FLIR-type imaging
- Lightning-detection equipment
- Local weather and fuel-moisture sensors
- Solar power with battery backup
- AI-assisted smoke detection
- A trained human observer during extreme fire conditions
Artificial intelligence should flag possible smoke columns, compare new images with previous frames and notify a trained dispatcher. It should never be allowed to make unreviewed life-and-death decisions.
The Government Accountability Office has warned that AI systems can produce inaccurate information and that remote cameras face power, transmission and verification challenges. That is precisely why cameras, satellites, sensors and human observation should function as overlapping systems rather than competing replacements.
2. Integrate satellite detection directly with dispatch
NOAA’s geostationary satellites can observe the continental United States approximately every five minutes. VIIRS instruments aboard polar-orbiting satellites can identify lower-temperature hot spots at roughly 375-meter resolution and also offer nighttime detection.
Satellites cannot see through every cloud or mountain obstruction, and detection coordinates are not always exact. But their alerts should feed directly into Oregon and federal dispatch centers, where they can be compared instantly with camera images, lightning strikes and local reports.
Nobody should be waiting for someone to notice an email attachment while a hot spot grows into a timber fire.
3. Deploy permanent wildfire drone teams
Forest Service guidance already recognizes that unmanned aircraft can detect fires, monitor spread, locate spot fires, acquire infrared images, identify water sources and firebreaks, measure weather and relay communications between dispatch and crews. Drones can also operate in smoke, darkness and other conditions that may be unsafe for conventional aircraft.
Every high-risk Oregon region should have trained drone teams capable of launching within minutes.
Large, long-duration drones could patrol after lightning storms. Smaller thermal drones could map an ignition continuously, guide helicopter drops, search for spot fires and verify that an apparently extinguished fire is truly cold.
4. Create redundant communications
Remote forests routinely lack reliable cellular coverage.
Lookouts, sensors, drones and crews should be connected through solar-powered mesh relays backed by portable low-Earth-orbit satellite terminals, including Starlink-class systems. A falling tree, damaged fiber line or burned communications tower should not isolate firefighters when they need information most.
5. Fuse the information into one operational picture
Camera feeds, satellite hot spots, weather forecasts, lightning data, drone imagery, fuel moisture, crew locations and evacuation information should appear in one shared system.
Artificial intelligence can help prioritize alerts and model likely fire movement. A qualified incident commander must make the final decision.
Technology should reduce uncertainty—not replace judgment.
Return science to forestry
Technology can detect a fire. It cannot compensate for millions of acres of untreated fuels.
Research from the Forest Service found that thinning alone did not consistently reduce wildfire severity, while thinning followed by prescribed burning produced substantially better results in dry Western forests.
That finding should end two political fantasies.
The first is that commercial logging alone will solve wildfire.
The second is that mechanical treatment has no legitimate place in forest restoration.
The effective prescription often involves both removing excess vegetation and carefully reintroducing controlled fire. The proper treatment will vary between Oregon’s moist Coast Range, west-side Douglas-fir forests, dry eastern ponderosa pine country, oak savannas and high-desert rangelands.
Oregon’s own 20-Year Landscape Resiliency Strategy identifies approximately 13 million high-risk acres and calls for thinning, prescribed burning, invasive-species removal and restoration.
The plan is not the problem.
The problem is whether Oregon and its federal partners will fund it consistently, treat land at a meaningful pace, maintain completed projects and publish results that taxpayers can measure.
A treated acre that is never maintained becomes an untreated acre again.
A policy for prevention rather than mourning
Oregon and federal land managers should adopt several enforceable standards.
First, establish a detection-to-dispatch standard. During extreme fire weather, potential ignitions should be reviewed within minutes, not hours.
Second, create a red-flag suppression rule. Fires within a defined distance of communities, utilities, municipal watersheds or evacuation corridors should not be managed for ecological benefit when extreme wind or critically dry conditions are forecast.
Third, maintain strategic roads, bridges, firebreaks and helicopter sites. Wilderness values matter, but a roadless landscape that cannot be safely accessed during an emergency creates predictable consequences.
Fourth, publish an annual public dashboard showing acres treated, prescribed burns completed, lookout and camera coverage, equipment availability, initial-attack success and fires that escaped containment.
Fifth, rebuild the forestry workforce and local infrastructure needed to perform the work. Thinning projects require loggers, truck drivers, equipment operators, foresters, prescribed-fire specialists, contractors and mills capable of using small-diameter material.
Sixth, require independent after-action reviews of catastrophic fires. Those reports should explain what was known, what was forecast, which resources were requested, which were unavailable and why strategic decisions were made.
Finally, homeowners and local governments must participate. The Almeda Fire proved that a relatively small grass fire can destroy thousands of homes. Defensible space, ignition-resistant exteriors, protected vents, utility hardening and evacuation planning are not substitutes for public-land management, but neither can public-land management substitute for them.
Only you can prevent forest fires
The old Smokey Bear message—“Only you can prevent forest fires”—was never literally true.
Citizens cannot prevent lightning. They cannot stop drought, eliminate wind or personally manage millions of acres of federal land.
But citizens select the people who write the budgets, appoint agency leaders, approve management plans and decide whether forestry will be guided by measurable science or ideological theater.
We can elect officials who believe public lands should be actively stewarded.
We can demand that environmental laws protect forests without becoming an excuse for permanent paralysis.
We can insist that timber production, habitat conservation, prescribed burning, firefighting and modern technology be treated as tools rather than partisan identities.
And we can stop accepting a policy cycle in which government spends years delaying preventive work, billions fighting catastrophic fires and more billions rebuilding communities—then congratulates itself for responding compassionately to a disaster it failed to adequately prepare for.
Fire is natural.
The destruction of entire communities does not have to be.
The next Big Burn may begin with a single lightning strike, damaged power line, abandoned campfire or spark from a piece of equipment. Whether it remains a small fire or becomes another statewide catastrophe will depend upon what we have done before that ignition—and how quickly we respond afterward.
Only you can prevent the next policy-made wildfire catastrophe.
And yes, that still depends on who you vote for.
That’s my viewpoint.
Follow more of my viewpoints over on my Substack Here: https://bensviewpoint.substack.com/
Sources and Further Reading
The Big Burn and the history of American wildfire policy
- Timothy Egan, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America
Publisher’s overview, book information and purchasing options:
HarperCollins — The Big Burn - Purchase the book
Amazon — The Big Burn - Authorized excerpt from The Big Burn
This NPR-hosted excerpt provides readers with a direct sample of Egan’s historical narrative.
NPR/KLCC — Excerpt from The Big Burn - Interview with Timothy Egan
Egan discusses the 1910 fire, Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and the evolution of federal fire policy.
Smithsonian Magazine — Timothy Egan on The Big Burn - Historical account of the 1910 fires
Forest History Society — The 1910 Fires - PBS documentary on the 1910 Big Burn
PBS American Experience — The Big Burn - History of federal fire lookouts and early detection
National Park Service — “Fire Away!” - A century of Forest Service history
Includes the development of mountaintop fire lookouts, aerial patrols and organized wildfire suppression.
U.S. Forest Service — The USDA Forest Service: The First Century
Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day fires
- Official Oregon retrospective on the 2020 Labor Day fires
Oregon Department of Emergency Management — Five-Year Commemoration of the Labor Day Fires - Oregon’s official after-action report
Reviews the state’s response, coordination, communications and lessons from the 2020 fire disaster.
State of Oregon — 2020 Labor Day Wildfires After-Action Report - Oregon Department of Forestry summary of the 2020 megafires
ODF — 2020 Labor Day Fires Fact Sheet - Beachie Creek Fire official incident history
U.S. Forest Service — Beachie Creek Fire - Beachie Creek management decision record dated September 3, 2020
This document records fire conditions, safety concerns, weather forecasts, management objectives and the operational strategy shortly before the Labor Day windstorm.
U.S. Forest Service — Beachie Creek Decision Record - Almeda Fire destruction and housing recovery
Oregon Housing and Community Services — 2020 Wildfire Recovery Projects
Forest management, fuel reduction and suppression
- Oregon’s 20-Year Landscape Resiliency Strategy
The state’s framework for thinning, prescribed fire, restoration and treatment of high-risk landscapes.
Oregon Department of Forestry — 20-Year Landscape Resiliency Strategy - The Forest Service’s reported 98-percent initial suppression rate
Explains why the relatively small percentage of fires that escape initial attack account for a disproportionate share of destruction.
U.S. Forest Service — The 98% Suppression Rate - Research comparing thinning and prescribed burning
This Forest Service study found stronger reductions in wildfire severity where mechanical treatment was followed by prescribed fire.
U.S. Forest Service Research — Fuel Treatments and Wildfire Severity - Community wildfire planning and defensible space
U.S. Fire Administration — Creating a Community Wildfire Protection Plan - Home-hardening and vegetation-management research
U.S. Fire Administration — Wildfire Mitigation Efforts for Homes
Cameras, satellites, drones and modern detection technology
- Oregon’s wildfire-detection camera network
University of Oregon Hazards Lab — Wildfire Detection Cameras - Federal review of wildfire-detection technologies
Examines satellites, aircraft, drones, cameras, sensors and the potential benefits and limitations of artificial intelligence.
Government Accountability Office — Wildfire Detection Technologies - GAO testimony on forecasting, detection, mitigation and suppression technologies
Government Accountability Office — Wildfire Management Technologies - NASA’s VIIRS active-fire satellite system
NASA Earthdata — VIIRS 375-Meter Active-Fire Data - NASA visualization of active fires detected by VIIRS
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio — Active Fires Observed by VIIRS - Forest Service uses for unmanned aircraft and drones
Includes fire detection, infrared mapping, spot-fire identification, weather measurement and communications support.
U.S. Forest Service — Unmanned Aircraft Systems FAQ
President Trump’s statements and wildfire policies
- Trump’s 2018 “raking and cleaning” comments
This contemporary report includes Trump’s remarks and the response from Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.
Reuters — Finns Respond to Trump’s Forest-Raking Comments - Executive order expanding federal timber production
The White House — Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production - Executive order on wildfire prevention, response and technology
Directs development of a technology roadmap involving artificial intelligence, data sharing, fire-ignition detection, forecasting and improved state and local response.
The White House — Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response
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