Dear HCN,
After reading Louise
Wagenknecht’s essay (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money) and
Mark De Gregorio and Lester Wood’s responses (HCN, 6/18/01:
Smokey’s secret is out), I am more than ever convinced of the
danger and arrogance of the use of the word “tool” for the practice
of prescribed burning. How can we be so confident as to call a
force of nature a “tool”? If we are in such control of it, why do
we need a “suppression” program? Or fire “fighters”? Why not fire
“managers”? If we really believe that prescribed burning is like
any other tool in our forestry toolbox, then I think we need to
have this tool taken away from us until we know how to “use” it
with more caution and humility.
Shirl
Harrington
Santa Fe, New Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fire as ‘tool’ an arrogant concept.
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