Friday, October 2, 2015

Wildfire article takes off

I published an article in The Conversation on the social context of wildfires in the west. You can access it here. I argued that the federal government underwrote the fire costs of people moving into the ever expanding wildlands-urban interface, a region that is getting more development but also becoming more vulnerable to forest fires as it dries and warms with climate change. The piece has attracted some attention, being posted by the Federal Reserve, Newsweek as well as in science and trade journals and local newspapers out west. I have also received lots of interesting email from people on the frontline of firefighting.


I wanted to write this piece for the past three years and gratified that when it did come out, it reached a wider audience that the more restricted coverage of my articles in academic journals.