War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view “realistically”; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent — war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive. — Susan Sontag, 1989

Since 1910, when hostilities were first declared, 883 firefighters have lost their lives in the war against forest fires—twice the number of total allied casualties in both Gulf Wars.

About 30 billion tax dollars have been spent on the forest fire wars. The fire-industrial complex has grown to include bombers, tanks and an army of private contractors that provision and equip each summer’s legion of firefighters. The stories of fiscal waste that accompany large fire campaigns have attained folklore status. My favorite is the northern California fire where workers poured mineral water from designer plastic bottles into their canteens while standing next to trucks full of tap water that went unused.

So how’s the war progressing after almost 100 years? How close are we to eradicating fire from our forests, or at least domesticating it to the cool ground fires that foresters crave but still reflexively stamp out?

Since 1960, forest fires have burned about 4 million acres a year. During drought years, more acres burn—almost 7 million last year. During wet years, fewer acres burn. It doesn’t matter how much money is spent on fighting fires or thinning forests or removing brush—fires burn when forests are dry and don’t when forests are wet.

Does the war on forest fires save homes and communities? No reason to think so. U.S. Forest Service research shows that homes burn depending on the home’s construction materials and the vegetation within 100 feet of the house. When Oregon’s Biscuit Fire roared into the small community of Oak Flat long after firefighters had evacuated the site, the only homes lost were those with brush and trees right up to their eaves. The homes with well-maintained yards were unscathed, notwithstanding flame heights of 100 feet or more nearby.

The number of structures lost to wildfires is remarkably constant—817 in 1999, 861 in 2000, 731 in 2001 and 815 in 2002. About 80 percent are in California, where fires in brushy chaparral, not forests, pose the greatest risk. In fact, the chances of a home burning from a direct lightning strike are 64 times greater than from lightning-caused wildfire.

Is the war against forest fires winnable? Maybe if we spent more money and more firefighter lives, we could subdue fire, bring it down to earth, extinguish it, stamp it out. Maybe if we invested billions more dollars in a giant jobs program, we could thin the 190 million acres the Forest Service claims need “treatment,” perhaps making fires benign and controllable (or perhaps not—the evidence that thinning subdues fire is scant). At $100 an acre (much less than most estimates), the total bill would be $19 billion, which, of course, would have to be paid every twenty to thirty years to keep up with the regrowth of brush and trees. That’s quadruple today’s entire Forest Service budget.

For $19 billion we could also construct huge fans on the coast of Florida to blow hurricanes back to the Caribbean, saving more homes and lives than forest fires cost. We could drill holes miles into the volcanic mountains from California to Alaska to relieve the internal pressures that lead to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, threatening the millions who live in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.

It’s time to face reality. Not only have we lost the war against forest fires, it is a war we cannot win. We must learn to live with fire. Indigenous people did so in North America for thousands of years. Why can’t we?