Things seem to be changing in the West – snowpack levels are lower than they used to be, and the snowpack melts earlier in spring. Fire seasons are longer and more severe. Megafires, wildfires over 100,000 acres, now occur more often, causing wide-ranging impact on homes, communities, and wildlands. These changes are expected to continue, and we need to increase the fire resiliency of our wildlands, while also completing defensible space work around homes and communities.
On Friday, May 1, 2015, Jason Llewellyn and Dale Swedberg co-presented about fire ecology and fire history, and shared our region’s story of fire management. Dale Swedberg provided an intro to fire history and fire ecology. Jason Llewellyn discussed what goes into a prescribed fire, from the decision to use fire as a tool, through the planning phase, to carrying out the plan and keeping fire where it is intended. Living in an ecosystem that has been dependent on fires for millennia, we can either tolerate wildfires or support prescribed burning, but it is impossible to have neither.