The Wildfire Crisis: Can We Log (or Graze, Thin, Burn, Zone or Rake) Our Way Out of This?

Speakers

• Michael Kodas (Moderator) Freelance Author and Photojournalist
• Jennifer Balch (Speaker) Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder
• Tony Cheng (Speaker) Director, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute
• Chela Garcia (Speaker) Director of Conservation Programs, Hispanic Access Foundation
• Rod Moraga (Speaker) Fire Behavior Analyst, Prescribed Burning Trainer and Chief Executive Officer, Anchor Point Group LLC
• George Wuerthner (Speaker) Public Lands Media

Description

After each fire season in which the destruction and death tolls of catastrophic wildfires increase, news media hear of various simple fixes to reduce the combustibility of increasingly flammable forests and wildlands. Most of those easy solutions prove ineffective at slowing the increasing size and destructiveness of wildfires and some of them, when inappropriately implemented, have actually increased the damage done by wildland fires or had other, unintended negative consequences. What techniques work to reduce the losses of life and property to wildfires? Which ones are overrated or misused? What is effective at minimizing the impacts of wildfires on our health, climate and natural resources?