How did their pre-Columbian forebearers deal with wildfires?
I believe the indigenous people used to clean the forests of undergrowth but the greenie rules of the government probably don’t allow them to do that anymore.
They mostly didn't.
Putting out every small fire means that the fuel load grows every single year, until there is so much fuel that a small fire can't be put out.
Last year's fire scar is lush with herbs that don't support a conflagration, but are more of a firebreak.
For very long time.
They were actually very skilled in setting up what we would call now “controlled burns”.
It was the white man, who abandoned sound forest management for “saving the trees”.
Old wild west pictures show the woods being pretty sparse, so carriages could easily drew through them.
Since them the number of trees increased many times and so do forest fires.
That’s exactly where I was going. My memory might be faulty on this, but I seem to recall reading that certain tribes/nations used to conduct controlled burns. I might be wrong on that.