Rick Spitzer/Special to the Daily
Fire has been a common natural event in history, even before humans. Lightning historically ignited fires on the grasslands and in the forests around the world. Many plants and animals have adapted, through millions of years, to surviving those fires. Fires tended to burn a patchwork across the landscape and, for the most part, they may not have burned with the severity that we see today.
Many early-day journals, diaries, and memoirs of people traveling across the West in the 1800s had firsthand accounts and experiences with prairie and forest fires. Many coming into Colorado reported they could not see the Rockies, due to smoke from forest fires. Fires were being ignited by settlers and by the coal-fired locomotives that were working their way into the Rockies.