TEN YEARS AFTER THE BISCUIT FIRE: A RETROSPECTIVE IN A SUMMER OF FIRE
In mid July of 2002 a series of lightning strikes ignited a number of small fires in some very remote mountainous areas of SW Oregon. The fires merged into what became known as the Biscuit Fire, the largest fire that year in North America. Burning across an area of over 500,000 acres it was the largest fire in Oregon history - until this summer. Once the fire was extinguished political conflagrations erupted over how to manage the fire-affected wilderness landscape. Those arguments are still echoing ten years later as we experience another summer of extreme wildfires across the West.
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk again with forest ecologist Dominick DellaSala about the lessons learned from the Biscuit Fire. We'll discuss why there is a key difference between the impact of that fire - and other large Oregon wildfires - and the devastating human toll that this summer's fires in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico are taking. Could it have something to do with Oregon's land use laws?
Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, President and Chief Scientist of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon, is an internationally renowned author of over 150 technical papers, including the award winning “Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World” (www.islandpress.org/dellasala). He has appeared in National Geographic, Science Digest, Science Magazine, Time Magazine, Audubon Magazine, National Wildlife Magazine, High Country News, Terrain Magazine, NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Jim Lehrer News Hour, CNN, MSNBC, “Living on Earth (NPR),” several PBS wildlife documentaries and is a frequent guest on Locus Focus. Dominick co-founded the Geos Institute in July 2006. He is motivated by leaving a living planet for his daughter and all those to follow.