山火真的需要扑灭吗？(上)

This is scientific American’s 60-second science. I’m Shannon Behrman.

这里是科学美国人的60秒科学。我是香农·贝尔曼。

And I’m Sarah Goodwin.

我是莎拉·古德温。

You’re listening to the sound of a redwood forest after a wildfire.

你现在听到的是野火过后的红杉林之声。

It’s eerily quiet—save for the sound of our own footsteps.

这里寂静异常——除了能听到我们自己的脚步声。

We recorded those sounds in the spring of 2021.

我们在2021年春天录制了这些声音。

That was nine months after a devastating fire swept through California’s Big Basin Redwood State Park.

九个月前，一场毁灭性的大火席卷了加州的大盆地红杉州立公园。

The flames left the redwood trees charred but still mostly alive.

红杉树被尽数烧焦，但大部分都还活着。

The rest of the life that usually animates the forest was gone.

那些让红杉林生机勃勃的其他生命都消失了。

You can hear it in the silence.

你可以听到这片寂静之林。

There’s always been a fire season in California in the late summer and fall.

夏末和秋季一直是加州的火灾频发季。

But recently it’s gotten longer. And worse. Much worse. There’s no denying climate change here.

但在最近，火灾季变得更长了。雪上加霜的是，这里无法避免气候变化。

2022 has been another year of drought for the American west and that means that, until the winter rains come in force, there’s still a risk for fire.

对美国西部来说，2022年又是干旱的一年，这意味着在冬季降雨到来之前，仍有火灾发生的风险。

California forests burned frequently until about a hundred years ago when across the west, a new approach to fire emerged in the name of conservation: suppression.

直到大约一百年前，加州的森林经常发生火灾，当时整个西部以保护的名义出现了一种新的灭火方法: 抑制灭火。

As in fire was bad — a destructive force to be avoided at all costs.

就像火是坏的——一种不惜一切代价都要避免的破坏性力量。

But research into thousands of years of climate history has shown that fire has always been a part of this landscape.

但对数千年气候历史的研究表明，火灾一直是这片土地的一部分。

We see it in the tree rings of the ancient redwoods.

我们可以在古老的红杉树的年轮上看到火。

Fire keeps these forests healthy and vibrant.

它使这些森林保持生机与活力。

The native peoples who lived in these forests before colonization seemed to understand this intuitively.

殖民之前居住在这些森林中的土著人民似乎很自然地理解了这一点。

From an indigenous cultural perspective, we think about, you know, the frequencies of fire and the stewardship of those landscapes.

从土著文化的角度来看，我们考虑的是火灾发生的频率和对这些景观的管理工作。

Don Hankins is a scientist who studies the intersection of fire, nature, and people. He’s also a member of the plains Miwok tribe.

唐恩·汉金斯是一位研究火、自然和人类交集的科学家。他也是平原米沃克部落的一员。

The history of the removal of fire from California is at least coastal landscapes began pretty early on with early Spanish settlement.

加州灭火的历史在很早就形成了，至少在西班牙人早期定居西海岸时就开始了。

When we think about some of the first policies within the state, that limited the extent of where indigenous people could engage with fire, that policy initially came out around 1793 from a proclamation from the Spanish governor of California that forbid indigenous people from using fire.

加州最早的一批政策限制了土著居民使用火的范围，这些政策最初来自1793年左右西班牙裔加州州长禁止土著居民使用火的公告。

And so, you know, that spread from Mission Santa Barbara outward.

也就是说，这是从圣巴巴拉教堂向外推广的。