So it might be correct to say that fires can be healthy for forests, but "supposed to" is more difficult to assert.
I just finished limbing, brush clearing, and preparing burn piles from a section of my forest because removing fuel is good, but most forests in America are young planted forests. They have smaller trees, less diversity, higher than typical density, and small trees that can cause fires to climb to crowns (where they then become deleterious rather than helpful.)
If we were to return to indigenous practices of regular burning, we would likely see healthier forests. But I'm not sure we'd see as much timber production from them. Since that's what most forests are held for... I don't see practices moving away from trying to maximize timber while minimizing cost any time soon.
I'm standing by my claims. However understand that I am in no way contradicting anything you said.
Indigenous practices changed which trees grew, for instance the Gary oak was much more prevalent in areas they tended. But old growth was predominantly removed by settlers.
If you want to specifically hike through the old-growth forests, Olympic Peninsula in WA is the best option.
Humans were modifying the Earth on the continent-wide scale long before the industrial age.
I'm a PNW native, you don't need to tell me about the small sliver of old growth we still have in the Olympics.
Yes, and that's a fancy way of saying "used periodic burns" to remove the vegetation to make the land more hospitable for grazers. Meaning more animals to hunt, this was arguably a form of agriculture and also served to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
> I'm a PNW native, you don't need to tell me about the small sliver of old growth we still have in the Olympics.
Then you should actually learn about the history, and not its Disneyified version.
Not that you shouldn't be careful, you can get yourself hurt in a natural fire (but it shouldn't be such a large fire that it kills you). Leave no trace should be your goal. Even if fire itself is something that doesn't matter, there are lots of other parts of leave no trace that that will also result in less fires.