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.
