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The prevalence of incredibly damaging wildfires is due to a 100 year history of fire suppression. Thank Smoky the Bear for completely criminalizing fire, which is an important and irreplaceable ecological process. Texas and Arizona wildfires are so bad because the lack of prescribed burning and allowing areas to burn periodically has allowed extremely flammable mesquite to become the dominant plant in those systems. If these areas were allowed to burn every few years, the mesquite would be replaced by plants that have less above ground biomass to burn, thus reducing the chances of catastrophic life threatening and property destroying wildfires.
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