Investing in a Sustainable Wildfire Future

The Collapsing of Time, a Raging Conflict Over the Future, the Misdirected Masses, and Forging an Uneven Path Forward

The following finds its roots in personal experiences on thinning and prescribed burn projects, responding to wildfire incidents around the country, visiting prescribed and wildfire burn scars, ongoing conversations with professors and firefighters, and the imprints left behind from reading countless articles, books, and synthesizing them into papers. The post below is best understood as an expression that projects a need to be shared to contribute to ongoing narratives. This is far more a piece of focused writing than a dissertation, though it still makes points based on the above.

Introduction

The innovation taking place in the wildfire sphere is exciting. Fire sensors, autonomous helicopters, fire-stopping chemical suppressants, new foams and retardants, new types of equipment, and innovations in fixed-wing aircraft can all be leveraged toward materializing a wildfire future. But which future should be sought?

The prevailing future contains a decisive turning back of the wildfire p…