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allow the Forest Service to disseminate its policy of wildfire suppression throughout the nation
(Pyne, 1982; Gates, 1968; Busenberg, 2004).
The policy of wildfire suppression was contested from its inception, as some authors
argued for an alternative policy that would use prescribed low-intensity fires to reduce fuels in
forests. Under this light burning strategy, prescribed fires would be intentionally ignited (or
naturally occurring fires allowed to burn) to decrease the risk of damaging high-intensity
wildfires through a program of fuel reduction. The Forest Service generally opposed the light
burning strategy, due to the risk of these prescribed burns escaping control and causing
unintended damages. The Forest Service therefore established and reinforced a systematic
national policy of wildfire suppression, but did not establish a matching program for fuel
reduction. This focus on wildfire suppression persisted in American wildfire policy for much of
the twentieth century (Pyne, 1982; Schiff, 1962; Carle, 2002; Busenberg, 2004).
For more than five decades, the Forest Service pursued a national policy of wildfire
suppression using advances on its appropriations and cooperative firefighting arrangements. The
cooperative arrangements linked the Forest Service with many other organizations to form a
wildfire management network. The Forest Service eventually formed cooperative fire protection
arrangements with all the states, as well as with other federal agencies managing public lands
(such as the National Park Service). Over time, this wildfire management network progressively
expanded its resources to advance the policy of wildfire suppression. Beginning in 1933, the
Forest Service made use of Civilian Conservation Corps volunteers to build up the firefighting
infrastructure in American forestlands. In 1935 the Forest Service set a goal of suppressing all
wildfires rapidly, and the agency subsequently pursued that goal through mechanized firefighting
by air and land (Andrews, 1999; Pyne, 1982; Busenberg, 2004).