Losing Sight of Wilderness Fuels Misguided Fire Policy

By Bekah Mamola | September 5, 2025

When abstract reasoning ignores the science: how lofty ideas about wilderness mislead wildfire policy.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times’ Noah Haggerty published a Boiling Point newsletter piece titled, “To solve the wildfire crisis, we have to let the myth of ‘the wild’ die.” It argues that John Muir’s belief in protecting wilderness as “untouched” land created the present wildfire crisis in California, and that abandoning the idea of wilderness is the way forward – but framing the problem as a philosophical struggle over untouched landscapes obscures the real issues.

By definition, wilderness does not mean “empty.” The origin of the word means places where wild animals live. It means where natural processes unfold, where biodiversity thrives without being subordinated to human exploitation. To call wilderness a “myth” erases ecological and evolutionary reality and risks justifying policies that would weaken protections for communities, habitats, watersheds, and species.

The wildfire crisis wasn’t born from preserving wilderness. Science shows it stems from climate change, sprawling development in high-risk areas, and human disruption of natural fire conditions through different “wildfire mitigation” efforts. And importantly, fire suppression was never synonymous with protecting wilderness. Quite the opposite. Wilderness is where fire is most often allowed to serve its ecological role without interference from agencies. While Haggerty claims that “virtually all of the ecologists, fire scientists and Indigenous fire practitioners” he spoke with agree that “this myth created our growing wildfire crisis in California,” this overgeneralizes and implies a consensus that does not reflect the breadth of independent, peer-reviewed, even Forest Service, science on forest density, wildfire behavior, and management outcomes.

What the newsletter uplifts as “active management” is itself unsupported by independent science. Research consistently shows that logging can make fires burn hotter and faster, while degrading biodiversity, water security, and carbon storage. Claims that forests burn more intensely because they are “too dense” are false. Research shows the densest forests, including those that have not burned in many decades, often burn less intensely due to their natural climate buffer. In these ecosystems, mixed-severity fire is typical and not a threat to the public, unless logging, or “thinning,” disrupts the landscape, which, then, reduces this buffer, spreads fires faster toward communities, and increases carbon emissions by three to five times per acre compared to wildfire alone. When policymakers latch onto the type of false narrative being spun by Haggerty, it fuels destructive legislation like the “Fix Our Forests Act,” which fast-tracks logging under the guise of “forest health.”

The real solutions lie elsewhere. Protecting wilderness safeguards habitats and biodiversity, and regulates carbon storage and watershed processes. Strengthening community preparedness — through home hardening, defensible space, and emergency response as advocated in the SAFE HOME Act and the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act — allows communities to stay safe while forests carry on their natural, necessary functions. Supporting local, culturally informed burns led by Indigenous tribes restores long-suppressed ecological relationships without dismantling protections for wild places.

Contrary to Noah Haggerty’s framing, the “dangerous cycles we’ve created” aren’t in “untouched” wilderness; they stem from the false belief that cutting, pillaging, and interfering with forests can control a naturally occurring, climate- and weather-driven phenomenon. Where is the direct, applicable support for communities? Why not let wild landscapes function as they should while directing protection where it belongs – to the human-wrought landscapes we’ve put at risk?