Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula last week

Here is coverage by the Missoulian’s Rob Chaney.  He’s good at getting at the important points, but if anyone else attended (I didn’t) and has some impressions, please share.

“Fire conference in Missoula attracts international experts”

“To effectively fight fires, Forest Service chief says agency must first fight harassment”

“Also in Monday’s plenary sessions, Forest Service program director Sara Brown put the problem in personal terms in her afternoon presentation. The Oregon-based researcher and former smokejumper recalled how she built a tough, masculine persona to fit in with her male firefighting colleagues, to the extent she froze out other women who she didn’t think measured up.”

“Science may overtake tradition in wildfire fighting”  

“A fire that spreads from federal land into state or private property suddenly complicates who gets the bill for the suppression efforts. That makes cost-control a strategic objective that sometimes gets in the way of tactical opportunities.”

“After the fire, scientists brace for climate change”

“Across North America, forests and grasslands spent millions of years evolving with fire as a tool to clean out dead plants, regrow new ones and maintain the things animals need. But, as several top researchers at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula pointed out on Thursday, the old patterns are getting pulled up by the roots.”

(The photo is from a recent prescribed burn and accompanied this editorial.  My interest in this comes partly from living at the bottom right of that ridge-line the smoke is behind.)

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