To solve the wildfire crisis, we have to let the myth of ‘the wild’ die

“On this site President Theodore Roosevelt sat beside a campfire with John Muir on May 17, 1903,” reads a wooden marker, not far from Bridalveil Fall in Yosemite Valley.

I stumbled across it last November, alongside other bundled-up tourists enjoying the valley’s autumn shades of green, orange and red and snapping photos of the chiseled, carefully painted all-caps lettering that sanctify the moment the founder of the Sierra Club inspired the president to protect Yosemite National Park. But to me, the sign tells a darker story.

“Muir urged the president to work for preservation of priceless remnants of America’s wilderness,” it continues. “At this spot one of our country’s foremost conservationists received great inspiration.”

Muir sold the president on a uniquely American myth of the wi