Forest management history is complex and varied, and depends a lot on specific details about the forests. Logging practices over the past two hundred years hav

Forest management history is complex and varied, and depends a lot on specific details about the forests. Logging practices over the past two hundred years have had big impacts on how the forest ecology works: what trees grow, what animals and insects live there and how much floor litter there is. All of this has an impact on whether a fire comes through and sterilizes the soil or leaves it fertile. There was immense pressure for the forest service to support logging and grazing, both of which dramatically alter the landscape. Another complication is that the native Americans in the area had their own silviculture practice that optimized for their own needs (by and large not lumber), so pre-white historical guides aren’t necessarily “natural” either. So the forests always regrew, but then we changed them (and stopped allowing fires). In the meanwhile the environment changed as we pumped more carbon into the atmosphere. Now when we reintroduce fire the results are different.