Wildfire Management is the Latest Trojan Horse Destroying America’s Great Forests

How We've Let Language of Safety Become the Machinery of Destruction

They arrive like heralds of doom, arms raised and eyes blazing, crying that the forests are burning and only they can deliver salvation. Magic charts become their proof, pseudo-logic their chorus, the phrase “fuel reduction” their constant refrain. They dress it all in the robes of science, of necessity, of stewardship. But behind the performance, “fire management” has become the latest Trojan Horse in the long war against America’s great forests.

The rhetoric is familiar. Catastrophic wildfires are invoked as the specter of collapse, as if the trees themselves conspire to destroy our communities. And so the prescription, repeated like gospel, whispered in hushed tones and said with wolfish grins, is seductively simple – log more. Thin more. Open the gates wider to industry – you can trust them this time – under the pretense of safety.

This year the mask slipped further. The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have seized on the fear of wildfire (one of the many “emergencie…