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National Geographic : 1982 Sep
Contents
IRE IS A CONSTANT on the Forest Ser vice's list of concerns, though its role and control have been significantly rede fined. Once it was perceived as total vil lainy, and the attack strategy was absolute: "We had what we called the '10 a.m. poli cy'-when a fire broke out, you had to have it contained or a plan to contain it by 10 a.m. the next day," said Al Defier, then deputy supervisor of Idaho's Sawtooth National Recreation Area. "Now we look at the total picture on each fire, assess its effects on the resources, and decide when and where we want to control it. We learned we were doing too good a job of preventing fires and were paying some penalties for it." Such as inhibiting the natural reseeding of the lodgepole pine, the jack pine, the sand pine, even the giant sequoia, whose seed cones spring open in response to the heat of the fire. And allowing a forest floor to build up such a flammable layering that one spark can set off an all-devouring firestorm-one that generates its own gales and cooks the ground sterile deep down. Even the trees
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