Oddly enough, they’ve only been fighting forest fires for the past century... Previous to that nobody even bothered and the forest fires just extinguished naturally.
Indians who lived in forested areas often lit burns to burn out the underbrush. Kept the forests healthy and since there was not loads of fuel on the ground, the big trees didn’t burn and there were not gigantic infernos such as we have now.
In fact I’ve been breathing smoke for more than a month as there are fires in just about every direction here in OR.