Oregon has entered fire season earlier than usual this year, which means we are hearing “If only we had more money to suppress fires,” says the Forest Service. “If only we were allowed to manage the forests” by cutting timber, says the timber industry. “If only people would stop driving so we could prevent global climate change,” say environmentalists. In reality, wildfires in the West aren’t evidence of a lack of funds, forest mismanagement, or climate change. They happen because the West is a fire plain, and a fire plain is going to burn. For as long as we’ve kept records, about 0.5% of the West burns each year, and nothing we can do is going to stop it. A chart showing far more acres burned each year in the 1930s is often cited as evidence that global warming isn’t happening. In fact, it is evidence that the Forest Service was dishonest in its fire reporting.