In the Midwest, the Smokey Bear mentality is grudgingly giving way to a system of planned burns that has woodland managers all fired up.
On a breezy morning back in 1989, four men approached a three-acre oak/hickory grove at Iowa's Indian Creek Nature Center. They were about to reenact ecological history.
On signal, Lumir Newmeister and Ralph Ahrens stuck burning matches into dry leaves on the grove's downhill edge. Within seconds flames were slowly licking their way uphill, ...