IDK about 'outrageous', but it is kind of frustrating it has taken us so long to figure out that the people who lived here knew what they were doing, and adapting their methods to our current society.
It hasn't "taken us this long to figure out..." the issues around prescribed burning are fairly modern and related to overreacting/incorrectly responding to some major wildfires that killed lots of people in the late 19th and early 20th century. (See the formation of the USFS and the policies promoted by them, Smoky the Bear, etc.)
Fire was a regular tool in everyone in North America's toolkit, indigenous or otherwise, and not something white people were too stupid to figure out.
On the ranking of frustrations regarding wildfires and climate change, not doing controlled burns (like the native peoples were doing) is really really low for me, especially considering all the things I just listed.
So do you believe that the lack of controlled burning is the issue here or is it
> I live in a place with a huge national forest just to the west
?
I think the urban sprawl is more to blame here. It's not that we as a society have forgotten about controlled burning or we've become so 'weak' and 'librul' that we don't do what needs to be done. There is a risk here (for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calf_Canyon/Hermits_Peak_Fire) and nobody wants to take responsibility over something which may cause immediate deaths or loses of property vs something which may or may not happen in the future. Sure, it's kicking the can down the road but who exactly is to blame for cities built right next to forests?
I have a huge issue with bringing up controlled burning as it is ALWAYS used as an argument against the obvious human created climate change. 'Hey, just burn the forest fuel from time to time, no big deal', etc..
