Many folks are familiar with the “left hand side” and “right hand side” of NEPA.
It’s a very handy way to think about it. When you say “left hand side”, people know what you mean. Mostly people talk about the left hand side, and not so much about “bottom side.” But it’s all within the NEPA process.
I thought it might be helpful to use the same idea about wildfire, in terms of both research articles, and news stories. I came up with the The Wildfire Hexagon. You’ll note that many wildfire stories focus on weather, or more specifically climate. Some studies include weather and fuels. Generally we could call those “left hand side” stories and analyses. If you remember the Patrick Brown/Nature kerfuffle, it was partially about the idea that many studies leave out anything on the right-hand side. For example, if we pay attention to the insurers who want to use climate projections in setting rates, they don’t consider the right hand side…which they would if they were required to only use actual past outlays.
Many climate reporters and scientists mostly talk about the left-hand side. Climate has influence over weather (the degree of the impact on specific situations) and some over fuels. Weather and fuels impact firefighters. Conceivably climate has less influence over communities, human-caused ignitions, technology, and fire management institutions. Local news sources tend to try to focus more on the lower right hand side. Then there is the Hotshot Wakeup, (@hotshotwake on TwitX) who covers all of Fire Suppression, Technology, and to some extent, Human Caused Ignitions, plus insurance. You might find some technology in the business or science section, mostly depending on whether local entities are developing the technologies.
We can explore the right hand side by diving a bit more into different topics. Next up: new technologies.