EDITOR'S LETTER

The last trail I hiked for my first hiking book was the Bear Wallow Trail. It was exactly what a final scene is supposed to be. A dramatic culmination of a long endeavor. The zenith of so many miles. Like a trail that meanders through the right brain of Robert Frost, the Wallow was thick with Douglas firs, Engelmann spruce, box elders and quaking aspens. It was arboreal. Beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful trail in Arizona that doesn't end at the top of a mountain or in the bottom of a canyon. It was an adven-ture, too. Fifteen miles along a perennial creek lined with thorns and poison ivy, a gantlet masterminded by Mother Nature. Despite a couple of shredded legs and a ripped T-shirt, I climbed out of the Wallow exhilarated. The last hike was done.

As it turned out, the euphoria lasted for only 8 miles, the distance between the trailhead and the lodge at Hannagan Meadow. That's where I saw the hotshots converging in the small, gravel parking lot. The Paradise Fire was burning in the adjacent Blue Range, and the only road to the historic lodge was closed in both directions. I didn't mind being "stranded" in the White Mountains, but I was worried that Bear Wallow would go up in flames. That didn't happen, though. Not that time.

A year later, however, almost one year to the day, it was lost. The Wallow Fire started burning on May 29, 2011. A few days later, our publicist called and asked if I could leave that night to do an early morning interview with Rick Reichmuth, the chief meteorologist for Fox News - he was on location in the White Mountains. I got to the satellite truck around 4 a.m. Kelly Vaughn, our senior editor, was with me. She was working on a story about the anniversary of Rodeo-Chediski, which, at the time, was the largest wildfire in Arizona history. That, too, would change.

I did a few segments with Rick. We talked about the places in harm's way: Greer, Alpine, Mount Baldy. And those places at the epicenter: Reno Peak, the Black River, Bear Wallow. We also talked about the dangerous fuel loads in the forests, created by a century of fire suppression. The sun wasn't up yet, but the sky was eerily illuminated by the firestorm around us. And the smoke was like fog, a filter that blurred the shapes of the landscape. I'd been around big fires before, but I didn't have the prerequisites to process the scale of Wallow. Or the associated emotion. You can't equate Engelmann spruce and Douglas firs to the victims of an earthquake or a tornado, but watching the incineration of an old-growth forest brings on a relative sense of despair. It's the grief that comes with knowing things will never be the same. Not in your lifetime. Not in your daughters' lifetime.

The scientists say that fire is a natural phenomenon. That it clears out dead organic material, returns nutrients to the soil and might even help rid an ecosystem of invasive species. The poets, including Ruth Rudner, say the same thing. "Fire is a force as wild and natural as wolves. It is rebirth."

Ms. Rudner is right. And so are the scientists. But how much fire does the ecosystem need? In the United States, approximately nine out of 10 wildfires are caused by human beings. That's not a natural phenomenon. That's a dramatic escalation beyond what Mother Nature sees as necessary. What's worse, almost all of those man-made fires are fueled by carelessness. That's what happened in Bear Wallow.

At first I was angry - Stage 2 of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross but now I just feel sorry for the two guys who started the largest wildfire in Arizona history. Clearly, they were fools to walk away from their campfire, but they weren't arsonists. Or ecoterrorists. They were backpackers out doing what so many of us do. Exploring. Breathing the air. Sleeping under the stars. Unfortunately, they forgot to pack their thinking caps, and now the forest that's immortalized in A Sand County Almanac has been devastated. Some of it forever.

For their mistake, the two guys will spend the rest of their lives trying to pay off the $3.7 million they owe in restitution the U.S. Forest Service agreed to not go after them for the $79 million it cost to put out the fire. Their real penance, though, is the never-ending nightmare of knowing that their poor judgment has robbed generations of hikers and backpackers the pleasure of experienc-ing the arboreal nature of Bear Wallow. And knowing that their carelessness has permanently altered a half-million acres in a place that Jo Baeza described as "God's Country" - Ms. Baeza, another poet, knew the White Mountains as well as anyone.

Two years ago, Smokey Bear turned 75. According to the Ad Council, 80 percent of Americans are familiar with his important message. There's no doubt it makes a difference, but when you con-sider how many wildfires are man-made, you have to wonder why more people aren't listening. The two guys in Bear Wallow certainly weren't. Neither was the seasonal firefighter who intentionally started the Rodeo Fire, hoping he'd get work instead he got 10 years in prison. And neither was the woman who started the Chediski Fire - in the middle of a brittle forest, she lit a signal fire because she got lost in the woods.

It's hard to understand what these people were thinking, but the message for all of us is clear: Only you can prevent wildfires. It's a message that's more important than ever, because what's happening now is not a natural phenomenon. If the forest needs a fire, let Mother Nature be the one to light it.