Before Smokey Bear There Was Woodbridge Metcalf

California’s natural environment evolved with fire both lightning-based and anthropogenic. The pre-settlement Native American’s pattern of burning managed for vegetation and wildlife as well as maintained diverse ecosystems of grassland woodland and forest. The culture of burning practiced by Euro-American settlers recognized the importance of fire as a tool to manage resources. However in general their improper use of fire disrupted these ecosystems by damaging and destroying grassland woodland and forests thus provoking a movement to conserve resources in the form of fire protection. Woodbridge Metcalf played a key role in the development of statewide fire protection policy and organizations for rural and forest fire protection. His educational programs changed the public's perception and behavior toward fire and established organizations that operated with the objective of cooperative statewide rural and forest fire protection. Metcalf's legacy is one of fire exclusion. The absence of fire has changed California's ecosystems and created larger more intense more destructive and more expensive fires.