1. What do you think is the main point of this excerpt of the article? What is the author attempting to help people understand?
2. What was the impact of the first colonizers of now California and its Indigenous peoples? How did that interaction impact the land?
3. What did Stephen Pyne, fire historian, mean when he said, "…we had so much great new forests that we created a problem."?
4. What are some fears current Californians express around the use of fires?
5. How does changing the language of "controlled burn" potentially help public perception? Why might this be important?