By Jes Burns When Timothy Ingalsbee thinks back on his days in the 1980s and ‘90s fighting wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, he remembers the adventure of jumping out of a helicopter into the wilderness. “Ideally we’d have at least one skid touching the steep slope,” he recalled. There was the camaraderie of sleeping with his crew out under the stars or …
Opinion: Why California’s costly tree-cutting wildfire strategy fails – 5/22/2019
By Douglas Bevington California’s current approach to wildfires is pouring more and more money into subsidizing logging and fire suppression, often in remote areas. This strategy isn’t working. In recent years we have experienced skyrocketing state expenditures for this policy, paired with unprecedented loss of lives and homes. California is filled with forests and other ecosystems where wildfire is a …
See how a warmer world primed California for large fires – 11/15/2018
By Alejandra Borunda See how a warmer world primed California for large fires. Read full article here.
Report rips expensive decisions in California wildfire fight – 12/15/2018
By Brian Melley LOS ANGELES (AP) — When a wildfire burned across Big Sur two years ago and threatened hundreds of homes scattered on the scenic hills, thousands of firefighters responded with overwhelming force, attacking flames from the air and ground. In the first week, the blaze destroyed 57 homes and killed a bulldozer operator, then moved into remote wilderness …
Vast forests of dead or stressed trees prompt new federal approach to restoration out West – 12/7/18
By Jennifer Oldham Hikers climbing above tree line in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest nowadays encounter a startling landscape: the gray skeletons of millions of dead lodgepole pine. It is on these slopes of the Rocky Mountains that the U.S. Forest Service would pioneer a novel approach to rid forests of the detritus from “epidemic levels” of beetle infestations that …
Fire & Our Future Online Event – 11/6/2018
Fire and Our Future – a Webinar for Funders Tuesday, November 6 | 12:00pm | Online 12:00-1:00 – Zoom meeting with fire scientists and hosted by COMPASS 1:00-1:30 – Funder-only follow-up discussion Description: Climate change has exacerbated wildfires throughout North America. As Carolyn Kormann recently wrote in the New Yorker, “Climate change is slow until it’s terrifyingly fast.” In many places, …
Post-fire forest policies should focus on watershed health – 1/27/18
By Tim Palmer | Posted Jan 27, 2018 at 12:01 AM A drumbeat of misinformation after the wildfires of 2017 calls for abandoning well-established safeguards for the forests, wildlife and watersheds of the West. One of my county commissioners blamed the Forest Service for “absolute devastations” and, chiming in, my state legislator called for “changes in forest policy … across the Pacific Northwest.” Statements such as …
Rebirth of a forest: The Columbia River Gorge after the Eagle Creek fire – 1/3/2018
By Cory Eldridge, Jonathan Soll and Katy Weil When the first images of the Eagle Creek fire reached social media, the bereaved lovers of the Columbia River Gorge wrote post after post eulogizing the places that, from the awful photographs, seemed lost forever. Nearly all included words like “destroyed,” “death,” or “memory.” The fire caused significant economic and emotional damage. But …
Yes, Something Can Be Done About Wildfires – 12/19/17
By Gregory Scruggs | Dec. 19, 2017 BEND, Ore. — On an autumn weekday here in Deschutes County, Oregon, a chain-saw roar ripped through a pine-scented neighborhood. Tree specialists were removing flammable lodgepole pines in Sunriver, a 4,000-home resort community. With summer crowds gone, the Sunriver Owners Association was reducing wildfire risk. This is a year when huge wildfires, characterized by …
2018 now worst fire season on record as B.C. extends state of emergency – 8/29/18
Close to 13,000 sq km of province has burned, breaking record set in 2017 Bethany Lindsay · CBC News · Posted: Aug 29, 2018 11:23 AM PT | Last Updated: August 29 The B.C. government has extended the provincial state of emergency because of wildfires that have now burned more area than any other season on record. As of Tuesday, …
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