Richard Hutto is speaking truth to power (the fire-industrial complex) as well as to ignorance (most Americans) in his book about severe forest fire. The powerful include the federal land management agencies; Congress; federal, state, and local elected officials; Big Timber; and the private-sector fire-fighting industry. The ignorant include most of the media. …The truth is that those severe forest fires that Smokey Bear warned us about are not bad, unnecessary, and preventable but are in fact good, necessary, and inevitable. …To Hutto (and to forest scientists and forests), a severe forest fire is a gift the forest receives; the forest is not destroyed by severe fire. …To Hutto, “burned forests are magical places that seem to harbor plant and animal species and visual experiences found under no other forest condition.” …Richard L. Hutto is Professor Emeritus in Biological Sciences and Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana.