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Comment by not2b | Hacker News Reader

The (US) National Park Service disagrees with you, so much so that in some places they hire native elders to help them with controlled burns. They call the practices "cultural burning". They were done for many purposes, over millenia.

See https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-...

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> The (US) National Park Service disagrees with you, so much so that in some places they hire native elders to help them with controlled burns. They call the practices "cultural burning".

But that can only be justified by a raw appeal to public relations. No native elder has any relevant experience today.

The small tribes of the northwest might have used fire for clearing land in their immediate area but there is no evidence that they were managing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests in order to reduce large wildfires.

Most old growth trees are gone. He gave proof they used controlled burns. Where is the evidence for the claim it's only ""small"" tribes?

According to the research done by Charles Mann in 1491, the indigenous population used fire to drive prey into hunting zones. I believe he even presents the theory that is what created the grassland plains across the central US. He presents quite a bit of evidence from primary sources.

I’m not a historical scholar and so maybe his evidence is “bunk”, but his work seems to be very well received in academic circles (unlike say Graham Hitchcock who is seen as more of a Malcolm Gladwell type).

Graham Hancock, I think you mean.

I’m surprised a study from before the Colombian exchange is still relevant in ecology.

Most of the area in between the Mississippi and the west coast doesn’t get enough precipitation to support trees. I don’t think that was generally understood until Powell’s survey a couple hundred years later.

There were lots of tribes though, so it probably added up to a humongous area.

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