On our property in northern Oregon we’ve been working hard to reduce fuel loads in the forest. We’ve also invested in limbing trees — removing the branches bel

On our property in northern Oregon we’ve been working hard to reduce fuel loads in the forest. We’ve also invested in limbing trees — removing the branches below 10’ which helps lower the risks of ladder fires (fire jumping from the ground cover to the trees). Around the farmhouse we’ve torn out a ton of shrubs and flammable trees to create a more defensible fire zone. We’ve replaced them with stone, more fire resistant species like maple, etc. It’s time consuming and expensive. And this is on a property that’s about 80 acres. Small by farm standards. People have no concept of the scale of federal forest land. Nor do people have a concept of the scale of modern firestorms. Yes, the 20th century policy of suppressing fires has led to hazardous fuel loads. Yes, wildfires are a part of the ecosystem. Yes, building right up to the wilderness’s edge makes the destructiveness of these fires ever greater. But climate change is real, yo. You can see the trees drying out. The Douglas Fir which are so iconic to the state of Oregon are more stressed every year — and dead trees are more flammable. Greater heatwaves, longer and deeper droughts — they have very obvious consequences in regards to fire. You have essentially rain forests in a lot of regions drying out, creating massive fuel sources. How do you even begin to deal with that through forest management? Controlled Burns are great — but they’re not always feasible. Nor are they without risk — in this climate they’re getting harder to do safely, in ever-shrinking seasonal windows. And again, the scale of land we’re talking about is hard for people to comprehend. If you want to wait for the peer reviewed study that links every specific fire to climate change, you do you. But these events are exactly what the science has predicted, and despite the armchair quarterbacking, there is no easy solution.