Walking Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest, the part that burned in the Biscuit Fire in 2002, there’s a lot to see. Just months after the fire was officially contained, winter rains poured off bare slopes and charred madrone trees stood like a forest of sticks. Runoff in some places looked like chocolate milk. Houses and outbuildings were charred foundations.

Around a bend, the area burned by the Biscuit Fire offered a different picture. Water gushed down channels bordered by what appeared to be bare earth, but the water ran amazingly clear. The charred madrones were sprouting from the bases of their trunks–in January. Some of the houses still stood, unscathed despite the blackened hillsides only dozens of yards away.

Tom Atzet, a U.S. Forest Service ecologist in southwestern Oregon, quotes fellow ecologist Jerry Franklin with some amusement. “The Biscuit Fire is like the Bible. I think you could find any passage that could make you believe anything.”

Most of the research about the effects of wildfire fighting are accumulations of anecdotal evidence, and that makes researchers like Atzet uncomfortable with sweeping claims about the science of wildland fire. There’s a lot of evidence that could lead to a variety of assumptions.

However, some people are starting to look and question land management and firefighting practices. Many of the ecological and social problems associated with wildland firefighting are just beginning to come out. Nobody would argue that to manage, or fight, wildland fire you need to break a few eggs, but until now, few have counted how many and which eggs.

Pictures of planes dropping massive loads of retardant or bulldozers crashing through the forest point to some of the obvious ecological concerns, but a host of small decisions made during a fire, such as where to establish base camps or command centers or the location of fire lines and firebreaks are made with little regard to ecological consequences. The use of herbicides or the inadvertent introduction of noxious weeds on the boots of itinerant firefighters are rarely considered in the cost of fighting fire. Even postfire embankment stabilization and rehabilitation programs are largely unregulated.

Increased scrutiny comes as many environmental groups are pushing for better planning when fires burn. With better research and comprehensive fire management plans that take into account fire’s role in a variety of forest ecosystems, winning the wildfire war won’t be our measure of success because if there’s one thing that everyone agrees on about the Biscuit Fire, it’s that fall rains–not people–finally put it out.