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  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Our Story
    • Blog
    • In the News >
      • Sustainable Missoula Column
      • Summer Smart News
    • People + Partners
    • Smarty Pants Awards
    • Jobs and Opportunities
    • Contact Us
  • Adaptation
    • Overview
    • Summer Smart >
      • Wildfire Smoke >
        • HEPA Air Filtration
        • Improving Indoor Air Quality
        • Clean Air for Schools & Daycares
        • Pregnancy + Infants and Smoke
        • Older Adults and Wildfire Smoke
      • Active Fires
      • Hotter Days and Nights >
        • Shade
      • Drought and Low Flows
      • Shareable Products
      • Partners and Supporters
    • Resiliency Planning
    • Health and Climate >
      • Mental Health
    • Art and Humanities
    • Adaptation Resources
  • Mitigation
    • Overview
    • 100 % Clean Electricity Resolution
    • Energy Smart >
      • Reduce our Use
      • Energy Stories
      • Footprint Fund
    • Solar Smart >
      • Solar Ease
    • Transportation + Smart Growth >
      • Land Use Planning
      • Electric Vehicles
      • Electric Buses
    • Buildings
    • Financing
    • Zero Waste
    • 2017 Emissions Inventory
    • 2015 Action Plan
    • Mitigation Resources
  • Get Involved
    • Advocacy >
      • State Legislature 2021
    • Connect >
      • 2020 Year-End Happenings
      • COVID-19
      • Dear Tomorrow
    • Footprint Fund
    • Act, Advocate, Assist
    • Calendar
    • Volunteer Opportunities
  • The Science
    • Climate Science Basics
    • Wildlife and Ecosystem Climate Impacts
    • Forests and Fire
    • Local Climate: Signs of Change
  • Donate
    • 2020 Year End Letter

Forests + Fire + Western Montana 

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We live surrounded by fire-dependent forests.  Our forests systems evolved with fire, some more than others. Fire is part of what we experience.  There's also no doubt climate change is influencing fire severity and the length of the fire season. There's lots of talk about fires,  forest management, and what we can do. Some of the discussion is helpful, some ill-informed, some science-based, some not so much. Here we provide some smart and at times provocative opinion pieces and articles that help shed light on the interplay between forests and fire and global warming and us. It's complicated.

2018 news:
  • Climate change is making wildfires more extreme. Here's how. PBS. Aug 6.

2017:
Check out the just-released Montana Climate Assessment.  See especially the chapter on Forests. 
  • The Missoula Current (Sept 20, 2017) has a recap: Montana Climate Assessment:  warmer temps, lower snowpack, longer growing season.
  • The Missoula Current (Sept 25) has a recap of this section:  Scientists: Weakened by past management, Montana forests face effects of climate change. 
  • ​Three of the authors of the Assessment penned an op-ed that is fantastic:​Wildfires, the smoking gun of western climate change?
The Missoulian (Oct 8) reports: More logging and thinning to battle wildfires may just burn taxpayers dollars

We also really appreciate this new-ish website: TREESOURCE.org, especially this article:
  • The choice; Good fire or bad fire?

Headwaters Economics has a new and timely study, as reported by Montana Public Radio:  
  • New Report gives tips for future fires.  

And a few more:
  • ​Chasing the Flame: does media coverage of wildfire probe deep enough
  • The science of fighting wildfires gets a satellite boost.
  • A perspective from a long time firefighter

SMOKE. The smoke from wildfires has real health impacts. Here is Missoula County Air Quality Specialist Sarah Coefield's opinion piece from the Washington Post.  ​Montana residents are desperate for clean air, and they're calling me

And in case you missed this, Amy Cilimburg weighs in.  Montana voices: preparing Missoula for a fiery, smokey future that is here

​
BEETLES. They're part of a story too. There's a beetle - climate connection of course.  Great work by University of Montana's Diana Six
  • Fueled by warming, climate bark beetles chew up western forests

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