50 years of Fire Policy by the U.S Forest Service
Lincoln Bramwell
Monday, April 22, 8 pm, Kennett High School
In 2009 when he was named historian for the Forest Service, Dr. Bramwell said, "In my position as the agency's historian, it is my goal to make Forest Service history more accessible to the public and more meaningful to the agency." Earlier in his career he worked on Forest Service hotshot and trail crews. "I had the opportunity to view the agency from the ground up and find working for it no less compelling today," he said.
Narrative – all narrative – depends on where it begins and ends, and how it spans that historical space between. For modern fire history the years 1960 and 2010 work nicely as bookends: they are the 50th and 100th anniversary of the Great Fires that so shaped Forest Service attitudes and policy. In 1960 the U.S. Forest Service enjoyed a virtual hegemony in fire; by 2010, it was but one large player in a complex field of institutions, practices, and ideas that had changed how Americans relate to wildland fire.