Why Did Native Americans Burn Much of the Landscape?
Numerous historical records from across all of North America show that Native Americans burned forests and grasslands frequently. These common annual fires were not destructive in the modern sense, but were set to control the growth of brush and thick vegetation that hindered travel and made hunting difficult. Frequent natural landscape fires reduced fuel accumulation and prevented the spread of large destructive fires. The forests and prairies of Ohio were commonly burned by Native Americans, and these fires promoted the growth of prairies.
