Toward Wisdom Rather Than Mere Education

It's "fire season" here on the West Coast of the US. Currently, there are 32 active "large" fires burning, not to mention the dozens of smaller fires or the 50 or so large fires currently burning in other regions of the US.The whole idea of a "season" during which destructive fires burn out of control is a modern invention. Up until the late 19th century, Indigenous people across the US, but especially on the West Coast, regularly engaged in prescribed or cultural burning as a tool for tending the landscape. These intentional small, low-intensity fires cleared undergrowth, encouraged grasses and other useful plants, improved forage for game, maintained open woodlands, made travel easier, stimulated plants used for basketry, and reduced insects and disease. And, of course, one of the consequences was that these small burns done during cooler, wetter months, was that they consumed the fuels that otherwise accumulate and feed the catastrophic fires we today experience every summer.When…