China has a long history of both using and managing fire use while still regularly forced to fight forest fires. My approach seeks to generate historical insights that explain how the wildfire paradox developed over the past 150 years in northeastern and southwestern China. To explore these dynamics, I use the concepts of “panarchy” and adaptive cycles, rigidity and wildfire paradox, and fire fences and corridors to explore socio-ecological resilience and fire management. By examining the interaction of wildfires and successive fire policies, the fundamental transformation of fire suppression after 1949, along with adaptive cycles of disruption and recovery in fire prone areas, I hope to broaden perspectives on how ideas, policies and people influenced forest ecosystems and resilience through total fire suppression concepts.