Dr. Chad Hanson, forest and fire ecologist with the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute, author of the new book, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate as well as dozens of peer-reviewed studies, recently joined us for an excellent presentation and conversation about the misconceptions surrounding wildfire. A recording of the webinar is now available to watch below for free.
You will notice periods of distortion during the first 20 minutes, particularly when Dr. Hanson was giving a short presentation. This was due to some connectivity problems we had during recording.
However, the Q&A session, which was over an hour long, did not have those distortion issues. A lot was covered during the Q&A portion of the webinar, so we encourage you to check it out. We also have links to specific moments in the video in case you want to skip ahead and hear Dr. Hanson’s answers to key questions. You can find these links below the video, but note that they will open the video in a new tab on YouTube.
Key Moments in the Video:
4:31 – Presentation starts (note: you’ll hear periodic distortion during this segment due to an unstable connection while recording)
23:45 – Q&A session starts
24:43 – What is fire intensity or severity?
27:30 – How much high-severity fire is normal?
28:33 – Are areas burned at high-severity “destroyed”?
33:40 – Do denser forests burn more severely?
38:00 – What terms or euphemisms should people watch out for?
41:05 – How do coast redwood and giant sequoia fare after fires?
46:10 – What forest types naturally experience a mixed-severity fire regime?
48:38 – How do we better protect homes and communities from fire?
51:00 – Are there issues with using prescribed fire in forests?
54:28 – A note about chaparral-dominated areas and fire.
56:33 – Are fuel breaks and other “fuel reduction” projects counterproductive, and how do we change the way fire agencies operate?
1:01:32 – Do fires burn more intensely or are they larger than historically?
1:05:22 – Are there more dead trees on the landscape than historically, and what caused the significant tree mortality in the Sierra Nevada over the last decade?
1:11:15 – Do dead trees increase fire intensity or extent?
1:12:59 – Do fires burn more intensely in highly protected areas (e.g. Wilderness)?
1:16:06 – Do forests need to be replanted after wildfires?
1:20:45 – Why is policy so slow to reflect the latest science on forest fire? Is the Biden administration showing any signs of change on this issue?
1:25:38 – What can people do to help change this?
1:31:13 – Which organizations are perpetuating logging on public lands?
1:32:13 – Are the logging projects recently proposed in the Los Padres National Forest going to help reduce wildfire risk?
1:33:42 – Are small trees important? Should they be removed?
1:35:00 – How much CO2 is emitted during forest fires, and does logging undermine carbon sequestration in forests?
