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Research presented in Missoula argues logged areas can burn hotter; speaker urges shift from remote thinning to community protection and emissions reductions
Summary
Dr. Dominic DellaSala summarized peer-reviewed and in-review analyses arguing that logged landscapes often experience higher-severity fires, and recommended redirecting treatments toward the wildland-urban interface, closing roads to reduce human ignitions, and focusing on emissions as the root cause of extreme fire weather.
Dr. Dominic DellaSala, Senior Conservation Science Associate at the Conservation Biology Institute, told a Missoula audience that recent research—some in review and some already published—shows logged and heavily managed landscapes often burn more severely than wilderness areas. "We looked at, I think it was 25 million acres over a four decade period...Here are the logged areas burning in high severity," he said, summarizing the analysis reviewers will see.
DellaSala argued the scientific record identifies root causes of extreme fires—rising temperatures, earlier spring snowmelt, drought and high winds—rather than…
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