Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said running bulldozers in the Kalmiopsis would be enormously destructive to a very fragile area.
"The scars from that use would far outlast the effects of the fire, and it would just be a mistake, not just to the spirit and intent of wilderness, but a real, real damage to the land itself," he said.
He also pointed to the benefits of wildfire as helping rejuvenate landscapes and reduce fuels in the environment.
"Fire is a natural process. Wildfire kind of helps keep the 'wild' in wilderness. Many other wilderness areas we have, the fire's influences account for its beauty, its wildness, its naturalness," he said.