Reconstructions of dry western U.S. forests in the late 19th century in Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon based on General Land Office records were used by Williams and Baker (2012; Global Ecology and Biogeography, 21, 1042--1052; hereafter W&B) to infer past fire regimes with substantial moderate and high severity burning. The authors concluded that contemporary large, high severity fires are not distinguishable from historical patterns. We present evidence of important errors in their study. First, the use of tree size distributions to reconstruct past fire severity and extent is not supported by empirical age-size relationships nor by studies that directly quantified disturbance history in these forests. Second, the fire severity classification of W&B is qualitatively different from most modern classification schemes, and based on different types of data, leading to an inappropriate comparison. Third, we note that while W&B asserted “surprising” heterogeneity in their reconstructions of stand density and species composition, their data are not substantially different from many previous studies which reached very different conclusions about subsequent forest and fire behavior changes. Contrary to the conclusions of W&B, the preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that conservation of dry forest ecosystems in the West and their ecological, social, and economic values is not consistent with a contemporary disturbance regime of large, high severity fires, especially under changing climate.