[gleeaikin]

Actually the Indians fires were not to burn down the trees, but to clear out the understory of brush and debris. Our own park service is now engaging in "controlled burns"; when fire danger conditions are at the lowest level, so we do not end up with the huge conflagrations we had in some of our parks a few decades ago from a 100 year buildup of debris. When Europeans first settled areas like Kentucky, and Tennessee, they discovered large open prairies called "barrens" which the Indians had produced by burning. These areas supported large herds of Eastern Buffalo which the Indians hunted. The were also called Buffalo Commons as the Indians who might otherwise be hostile, usually observed a truce while they hunted these areas.

[Eva]

Unfortunately, your claim does not hold true in WA state because the forests were so thick that no undergrowth was able to grow. You can walk right through a rain forest, it is only in the new growth forests that the nettles, blackberries and other under growth proliferate. The apex trees grow up among the under brush and have a short life span, beginning to die off about every forty years, while the cedars and other conifers take a longer time to form a canopy which closes out the sunshine and kills off the underbrush. It is quite pleasant to walk through an old growth forest, not so for the newer forests. The Indians were burning the forests before the Europeans came in to log.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gleeaikin.