Control of forest fires has long been considered as one of the most important aspects of forestry. Very large-scale forest fires are primarily a North American phenomena, although many other countries face serious forest and brush fire conditions. Early European-trained foresters had not dealt with large fires. As a result, forest fires in the United States were much more serious than those ever encountered.

Fire has long been used to clear land, change plant and tree species, sterilize land, maintain certain types of habitat, as well as for many other purposes. Native Americans are known to have used fire as a technique to maintain certain pieces of land or to improve habitats. Although early settlers often used fire in the same way as the Native Americans, major fires on public domain land were largely ignored and were often viewed as an opportunity to open forestland for grazing. If fires were fought at all, they were fought with shovels, brooms, rakes, fire lines and backfires.

Especially large fires raged in North America during the 1800's and early 1900's. The public was becoming slowly aware of fire's potential for life-threatening danger. The first very large fires were the Miramichi and Piscataquis fires of 1825 that burned around 3 million acres in Maine and New Brunswick. Other large and deadly fires were in the Lake States, including the Peshtigo fire of 1871 that covered more than 1 million acres and took over 1,400 lives in Wisconsin. At the same time, fires were burning in Michigan, cindering about 2.5 million acres. Ten years later, these devastating Michigan fires were followed with another 1 million acres going up in smoke. In 1894, a large fire around Hinckley, Michigan, took the lives of 418 people. In 1903 and 1908, huge fires burned across parts of Maine to Upstate New York. In response, the first State fire organization in the East was established in Maine.

Federal involvement in trying to control forest fires began in the late 1890's with the hiring of General Land Office rangers during the fire season. Largely ineffectual, the rangers were at least aware of many remote fires and could notify towns and settlers if a fire was heading their way. When the management of the forest reserves (now called national forests) were transferred to the new Forest Service in 1905, the agency took on the responsibility of creating professional standards for firefighting, including having more rangers and hiring local people to help put out fires.

Of great importance to this cause were the devastating fires in the West. The first one was the 1902 Yacolt fire in southwestern Washington, which burned more than a million acres in Washington and Oregon and cost the lives of 38 people. A result of the fire was the formation of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association in 1909, led by Edward T. Allen. The previous year Allen had been appointed as the first Forest Service Regional Forester in the Pacific Northwest Region. One year later, in the northern Rockies, some 3 million acres were burned in the "Big Blowup of 1910," and another 2 million acres in other areas. Within a year, Congress passed the Weeks Act of 1911, which, in part, allowed the Forest Service to cooperate with the various States in fire protection and firefighting. The Forest Service also began a program of fire research, which continues to this day.

Lookout houses (many starting just as platforms atop trees) were used to locate fires from mountaintops during the fire season. The houses varied from low ground houses to very tall towers, sometimes more than 100 feet tall. Just after World War I, the Forest Service contracted with the Army Air Service (Corps) to provide airplanes and pilots to spot fires from the air. This program worked successfully for more than 10 years until a comprehensive network of lookout houses and telephone systems were in place. Today, a computer network tracks every lightning strike and aerial patrols monitor for active fire sites after lightning storms. The Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 allowed the Forest Service to administer grants-in-aid to equal the amounts contributed to firefighting by the States and to set standards for firefighting and equipment.

During the 1930's, the civilian conservation Corps (CCC) program offered a change from just having Forest Service employees or hired people to fight fires. CCC enrollees were sent by the thousands to help fight fires throughout the West. The CCC's successfully tested and then used a 40-man (there were no women firefighters at this time) fire suppression crew. The CCC program also built and staffed thousands of lookout houses and towers across the country.

Near the end of the 1930's, another new tactic was employed -- having firefighters jump from airplanes to remote locations to put out fires before they became too large to fight. The first smoke jumping on a forest fire took place July 12, 1940, on the Martin Creek fire on the Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho. The two smokejumpers were Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley. On August 5, 1949, 13 smokejumpers lost their lives when a fire in Mann Gulch on Montana's Helena National Forest suddenly flared in high winds, leapt out of control, and enveloped the firefighters. This tragic event prompted the Forest Service to establish centers in Montana and California that were dedicated to developing and testing new firefighting equipment.

By the mid-1950's, the Forest Service gradually assumed the primary responsibility for coordinating wild land and rural protection in the United States. During this time period, more than $200 million worth of World War II surplus equipment was passed to State and local cooperators. By 1956, air tankers, often, military surplus B-17's filled with borate mixture and helicopters for transport, were in use.

In 1971, the Forest Service modified the 10 a.m. policy to handle fires in wildernesses by using a 10-acre policy as a guide for planning. Thus, some fires were allowed to increase in size to 10 acres only if they did not destroy or threaten to destroy private property or if they endangered life or property adjacent to the wilderness. Another so-called "let burn" policy came into being in the 1980's, which essentially allowed some fire, as in wilderness, to burn on the national forests depending on conditions.