Standard firefighting techniques, such as using bulldozers to cut a fire line, can leave long-lasting scars on the landscape. Fire retardants can be toxic to waterways and wildlife. Burning also reduces insect populations and helps to fertilize the trees and make better acorns for people and wildlife to eat.

What happens when fires are suppressed?

"Now, because of fire suppression, they tend to burn at a higher severity and you lose that habitat." The practice of not allowing any fires means that more leaf litter and branches—the components of forest fuel—can accumulate on the floor, while small trees that would have burned in the past can grow large enough to ...

Should fires be suppressed?

Experts in favor of letting natural forest fires burn unchecked argue that fire suppression disrupts the natural forest cycle and endangers the livelihoods of people who depend on the forest, and the wellbeing of the plants and animals living there.