Wildfires

The article I am writing about is the article which is called “How The Smokey Bear Effect Led to Raging Wildfires.” This article peaked my interest because I thought it had something to do with those annoying Smokey Bear commercials that always came on when I was young. Titles may be deceiving and this title definitely fooled me, this article had nothing to do with Smokey Bear at all instead it was about how accidently settlers caused more deadly fires. Inside of this article it explains how before settlers came, fires would burn but not burn down the trees, why? Well this is because the fires had plenty of other sources of fuel around them (ex. Grass). So then what happened? Well what happened was that settlers came with their livestock, livestock eats grass which takes away a large fuel source for fires. Fires are not just going to go away so they just found another fuel source which was the trees. Scientists saw the effects inside of the tree rings as well; it is common knowledge by now that forests are being burn down and it is a huge problem. But what scientists noticed in the tree rings is that back in the 1600’s trees just had scars and then they would heal and the tree would go back to normal growth. Something I can relate this too is breaking a bone, for a little while there is no growth going on since the bone is broken, but then it heals and goes back to normal growth. Around the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s this seemed to have changed which the article called the “Smokey Bear effect.” What changed is that when settlers came like I stated earlier livestock ate the grass. The U.S set places aside as national parks or national forests which created forests that are dominated by shrubbery and trees. Before it was just a few trees every acre and not it is trees galore. This is essentially fuel to the fire and this is part of the reason why fires are being seen taken to a whole new level. My thoughts on this article are a little mixed because I do not completely understand the whole science aspect behind this but what I do believe is a problem is that fires that are at this level are not ok and not healthy for places inside of the United States. If national parks are being burnt down because of something we got wrong we need to find the problem and fix it. I understand it is not that easy but it is an increasing problem and it does not seem like much is really being done about it. Especially since one of my family members was almost severely affected by these fires I think a bigger initiative needs to be taken.