“Damage” is in the eye of the beholder. It’s causing change but is that a bad thing, really? I grew up in Oregon and we read about the fires every year. But fire is a natural part of the lifecycle of a forest. Fir trees can’t reproduce without it, for instance. Their cones are sealed shut and only open when subjected to intense heat, which is to say only after a fire. And there are a whole host of other plants and animals which are specialists in taking advantage of the opportunities that forest fires open up.

Amen to SDB’s comment.

We seem to have a real nature-as-park mindset… we refuse to see natural processes as vital (and beautiful) parts of a dynamic, living whole. Fires, floods, earthquakes… all very exciting and very important. We’re lucky, though, as humans: we’ve developed plenty of survival mechanisms in the face of so many natural “disasters” that we — more often than not — make it through relatively unscathed.