The “most important law in the creation of eastern national forests” was established on this day 113 years ago.
The Weeks Act, signed into law by President William Howard Taft on March 1, 1911, allowed the federal government to purchase private land to protect the headwaters of rivers and watersheds in the eastern United States. The act nationalized the U.S. Forest Service, as neither federal nor state governments owned substantial forested lands east of the Mississippi River before the act’s passage.
According to the Forest History Society, in just 10 years Congress had rejected more than 40 bills calling for the establishment of eastern national forests.
Senators and congressmen opposed these measures for various reasons; some western representatives (and conservation groups) who supported national forests in principle resented the possible loss of funding to their eastern counterparts. Many fiscal conservatives agreed with House Speaker Joe Cannon when he declared “not one cent for scenery.”
Leadership on the issue came from a surprise source. Congressman John Weeks, a Republican from Massachusetts, was a former naval officer and a successful banker. Weeks was elected to the House in 1905, and two years later he was appointed to the House Committee on Agriculture by Speaker Cannon.
At first Weeks didn’t understand why — he had few farmers in his district, and he had little interest in agricultural issues in Congress. He was concerned, though, about the damage logging had caused in the White Mountains, near where he had grown up and where he now summered with his family. Speaker Cannon told Weeks that if he, as a businessman, could put together a forestry bill that he supported, then Cannon would get it considered in the House. The man who had once declared “not one cent for scenery” had changed his mind.
The Weeks Act not only paved the way for the National Forest System, but also established the nation’s first interagency wildland firefighting effort, an effort that continued and worsened the settler colonial practice of fire suppression through bans of cultural fire usage.
There were multiple reasons for prioritizing USFS fire control for the new forests, according to a system article published on the act’s centennial. A 1902 report described the biggest threats to Appalachian forests as being fires and logging. In 1910, a series of catastrophic wildfires now known as the “Big Blowup” devastated Idaho and Montana, killing more than 100 firefighters and destroying several towns. Forest reserve advocates used these and other fire events to convince Congress to establish an agency that would primarily focus on wildfire suppression.
“Fire lookout towers and trails were built and ‘forest guards’ were hired at a salary of $50 a month,” the USFS article said. “Because the Weeks Act provided matching federal funding for state wildfire management spending, state divisions of forestry also upgraded their fire control organizations.”
What wildland firefighters now affirm as an uninformed suppression effort was worsened through fear-based short-sighted decisionmaking, along with xenophobic attitudes toward the people who had long lived on the land.
The Karuk Tribe in California views the passage of the Weeks Act and the increasing catastrophic fires across the country as having a direct connection.
“The passage of the Weeks Act in 1911 following the Big Burn of 1910 made cultural uses of fire essentially illegal, and for the many decades following, less and less burning occurred while more and more vegetation grew,” the tribe’s website said. “Over a century of policies of fire suppression has created the conditions for the catastrophic, high-intensity wildfires we are seeing today. Warming temperatures and summer droughts further exacerbate these conditions.”
The USFS wildland firefighting system now largely understands the benefit of managed fire and makes an effort to include tribes in its decisionmaking. There is more work to be done, however, as climate change further exacerbates the cracks in the system that firefighters and managers are trying to mend. For better or for worse, it all started with the Weeks Act.
You think railroads have been eliminated as a cause of wildfires? Is that some kind of a joke? Use the search function on google or on this website and search railroad fire and you’ll see how ridiculous that statement is.
Appreciate this historical account of the Weeks Act. I am concerned that the constant drumbeat that the establishment of wildland fire suppression made the fire problem worse in this country is not historically accurate. The destructive fires that occurred between the 1870s and 1918 were calamitous and the organized effort of fire prevention and suppression was able to save lives, communities and watershed destruction.
Mega-fires a century ago, according to the WorldAtlas and others:
•The Peshtigo Fire, October 8, 1871, the same day as the great Chicago fire, is thought to have been caused by railroad workers clearing brush for tracks. The fire burned 16 towns with Peshtigo being consumed in an hour. The deadliest fire in US history, it took 1,200 to 2,500 lives; 800 died in Peshtigo alone.
•The 1871 Thumb Fire in the State of Michigan killed 282 people and damaged several towns. More than a million acres were consumed.
•The Great Michigan fires of 1871 severely destroyed villages, towns, and cities such as Manistee, Alpena, and Holland. Approximately 500 people died.
•Minnesota’s Great Hinckley Fire occurred in September 1894. It destroyed six towns, including the town of Hinckley. It burnt approximately 200,000 acres, with at least 418 people dying. The actual number is likely much higher. Fires intentionally set to burn cleared slash left along railroad tracks ignited this catastrophic wildfire. All this destruction occurred in just four hours.
•The Cloquet Fire took place in Minnesota in October 1918. The fire was started by sparks from a local railroad. The death toll was 453, while more than 50,000 people were injured. More than 250,000 acres of land burned; properties worth $73 million were destroyed; 38 communities razed.
Large fires in the 1800s (and 1910) were not the same as large fires now or in the last 25 years, or even comparable; I don’t understand why you’re trying to compare them. And no one’s saying that the establishment of wildfire suppression made big fires worse. Where are you going with this, Robert?
“And no one’s saying that the establishment of wildfire suppression made big fires worse”
100% incorrect. That is exactly what fire ecologists the world over are saying. Screaming, in fact. But unfortunately Smokey has convinced several generations that all fire is bad. Therefore, we can’t get the support and funding we need to do real forestry work with real forestry machines to get real good firelines and shaded fuel breaks to do real broadcast burning. Instead, we have these little bobcats that cannot hope to be productive enough to get good lines in, so we burn little tiny units, and we occasionally lose these burns because we weren’t able to get good lines in because we aren’t using real forestry equipment for real forestry work.
Its establishment did next to nothing to affect big fires or fire severity, and those big fires were the REASON organized suppression and prevention were established. Read Jack Thomas’ book Journals of a Chief, or Gifford Pinchot’s Breaking New Ground — or both.
100 years of well-intentioned suppression — along with at least a dozen other forestry practices — helped make big fires worse. There is no one cause and I laugh when people try to argue that there is. A guy with a degree in real forestry would know better.
… by real foresters who are real men I suppose?
I agree with this…Maybe its time to semi retire Smokey to the Age 57 rule. Along with the old adage that single engine turbine helicopter were somehow unsafe in the 1980s thru 2000s
Thanks for that fantastical data set.
But many of us heard the issue BITD..
Looks like the ol reliable 206 suffered worse than the venerable Huey…..
It’s interesting numbers for sure — they are not, however, fantastical.
If a person doesn’t look closely at the YEARS in those columns you’d think UK pilots or helicopters were awful. Their numbers actually aren’t a lot different, in fact the UK numbers for the twin-turbine ships look better.
SAFETY ANALYSIS: Single- and twin-engine helicopters
WALLY I suppose you’ve not noticed any of the shifts in “message” from Smokey Bear over the last 20+ years? You think retiring America’s #1 most famous icon would really be a good idea?
prnewswire.com
Some of the more recent Smokey (not the) Bear PSAs are heavy on the prevention and also manage to sidestep the “all wildfires are bad” fallacy. We (Hunter Bassler) pointed this out back in September 2023:
Smokey’s inside of us. What did you think of that post?
Some…got too busy in emergency management then FIREWISE ( which is a great program, no teeth) and concentrating on the emergency management side of the house in the last 15 years
Read it and saw the Smokeybear.com…..using Sam Elliott? How cozy with the fam and camping
Could liken it to a softer, kinder, non 1950s-2000s. Didn’t think Smokey had much against RX burning, but then I was wearing a different green uniform during my day(s) and Smokey was only on my radar when I was in grade school and a few times at the State Fair when folks would don the the Bear uniform on 90 degrees days
I was one of those guys in the background going to forestry school and a Part 141 flight school and trying to couple a Forestry Fire and Aviation Management degree BITD and I fully understood in the 1980s realm how much aviation resources would consume a forestry / wildland fire budget so my depth of interest of Smokey was low while studying the finer points of silviculture and wildland fire with spatterings of aviation maintenance while obtaining my flying certificates
Maybe I could become a kinder, gentler supporter of Smokey……
Time will tell………..
Re: Smokey, While I do agree that Smokey fully started out as a propaganda piece to further beat the drum of fire suppression, I’m not sure ridding the USFS of his image would do anyone any favors. As Kelly mentioned, the recent turn the service has made to making him (the fictional bear) an image of fire safety and education seems to be a step in the right direction.
Smokey Bear was established in the early 1900’s because the large fires before and during that time that killed hundreds if not thousands of people/loved ones and destroyed the homes and settlements they labored so hard to build. There was felt a need to communicate to the public in order to reduce human caused fires and prevent the horrible destruction they experienced. It was a prevention effort but yes, people wanted fire suppression understandably as in most areas of the country there was little to no organized fire suppression. In 1911, the State of Minnesota created the MN Conservation Dept. for this purpose which in later years was renamed the MN Department of Natural Resources which to this day is still responsible for fire suppression in the majority of the State along with partners the BIA and the USFS.
Smokey Bear happened in 1944 in New Mexico; it’s the U.S. Forest Service that was established in 1905. And in 1911 the Minnesota Division of Forestry was established — to conserve the state’s forests by promoting fire prevention and protection — which is pretty impressive in terms of longevity!.
It would be fun to have a look at the timeline of all the state forestry agencies …
I’m not going to question your credentials but your description of “real forestry” is but one narrow tactic to “manage” (or mismanage) the forest. Real forestry is the overall management of forested land for multiple benefits to include maintaining an inventory of forest stands, planning and implementing sustainable harvests to provide products that American citizens need. It also includes reforestation by planting and natural regeneration, intermediate treatments like thinning, and the protection of our valued resource from insects, disease, and yes fire. This is all done to also consider and promote wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and preservation of significant features or old growth (example,Sequoias). You could do yourself a favor by researching the definition of forestry in fact Wikipedia has a nice easy read on the topic.
Trying to point out that the US had a horrible and tragic wildfire problem before the establishment of an organized wildland fire prevention and response efforts by the federal and state land management agencies. The Weeks Act and the 1924 Clarke-McNary Act were important to that success. Blaming past firefighting suppression as the cause of today’s mega-fires discounts the fact that that same fire suppression, and more so fire prevention, had significantly reduced the horrible situation we were in prior to 1918 and probably more prior to the 1930s. The situation we are now in is a crisis and the losses we are experiencing are not tolerable, we need to get on it. However, as bad as it is now, it was even worse a century ago.
The fire crisis we’re in now was even worse a century ago?
What is your background in wildland fire?
I encourage you to look at my first post I wrote and compare how destructive fires were a century ago to the fires we are now experiencing. Yes, the fire behavior is extreme now. The forest are unhealthy now. That is a very important and not disputed. My point is how distructive and deadly fires were prior to organized wildland fire suppression. If you want to know my background it is posted on the internet. Here is an article I wrote that you may find interesting. https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/infrastructure-security/railroads-can-teach-utilities-how-to-stop-causing-fires/
Robert, the vast majority of fire researchers would not agree with you. Per the USFS Rocky Mountain research article mentioned by Kelly earlier:
“Decades of aggressive wildfire suppression have caused a number of profound ecological changes in some of the nation’s forests. First, the composition of some forests is shifting toward less fire-tolerant species. For example, in the western US,
Douglas-fir and grand fir are encroaching upon stands previously dominated by ponderosa pine. Second, fire exclusion has allowed the density of many stands to increase, particularly in forest types that have historically experienced frequent, low-intensity fires. Third, the suitability of forests as habitat for a wide variety of wildlife species has been altered, as a result of changes in canopy cover and the composition and productivity of understory communities.”
Yes the fuel problem is worse. The forests are not healthy. The fire intensity is extreme even at night. That is important but the point I am trying to state. The destruction of communities and loss of life was worse a century ago. Read my first post at the top and look at what the fires did a century ago.
You’re still comparing apples to oranges here.
First, linking “destruction of communities and loss of life” to wildfire intensity is a false equivalency. Communities near and in forests can and have since learned from the poor building decisions made during the 1800s that directly caused so many communities to be destroyed. Buildings have been built to be more fire-resistant and fire mitigation tactics/evacuation procedures have improved since the 1800s, leading to overall fewer communities being destroyed and fewer people dying.
Secondly, yes, wildfires burned more acreage during the pre-industrial era. A much larger portion of California burned yearly between 1500 and 1800 than in recent years, which makes sense given we’re coming out of (and still largely in) a suppression-focused forest management system.
HOWEVER, those points have nothing to do with your argument that the “constant drumbeat that the establishment of wildland fire suppression” didn’t make wildfires worse.
My article above focuses on the nation’s response to the problem of wildfires. I make specific mention of the 1910 Big Blowup being one of the worst fires seen at that time. I could have also mentioned the 1800 fires from your initial comment, but that would have done nothing to detract from the article’s point.
What matters is that the nation chose to react to the tragic widespread wildfire problem with a 100% wildfire suppression effort. That response, obviously, led to a period of time without any wildfires. But, the catastrophic wildfires we’re seeing today are unquestionably a result of that suppression decision, worsened by widespread on-going climate change-driven drought.
Researchers have repeatedly found that the average wildfire “season” has been starting earlier and lasting longer. Additionally, yearly acreage burned by wildfires has greatly increased since the 1980s.
“Of the 10 years with the largest acreage burned, all have occurred since 2004, including the peak year in 2015,” from: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-wildfires#:~:text=The%20extent%20of%20area%20burned,2015%20(see%20Figure%202).
To go back to California, even though there are fewer individual fires today throughout the state than there were in the 1800s, each wildfire is more likely to be destructive. California wildfires before and during the 1800s killed about 10% of trees, with 90% surviving. Those numbers have since flipped https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/FireForestEcology/FireScienceResearch/FireHistory/FireHistory-Stephens07.pdf.
All of this to say, yes, it’s factual to say wildfires were bad in the 1800s and prior. But to point to that and say “suppression saved lives, actually” is disingenuous and disregards the overwhelming body of research that shows a century of suppression plays a part in the catastrophic wildfires we’re seeing today.
Direct Quote from the article “Over a century of policies of fire suppression has created the conditions for the catastrophic, high-intensity wildfires we are seeing today. Warming temperatures and summer droughts further exacerbate these conditions.”… attributed to the Karuk tribe in California
That is correct, Libby.
And as I said earlier, the establishment of fire suppression did next to nothing to affect big fires or fire severity, and those big fires were the REASON organized suppression and prevention were established. 100 years of well-intentioned suppression — along with at least a dozen other forestry practices — helped make big fires worse. Robert Lewin argues about the establishment of fire suppression, while conveniently ignoring the fires of 1910, which burned just five years after the U.S. Forest Service was created. Those fires burned across three states, killed 86 people, and burned the town of Wallace to the ground.