Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time
"Fire suppression is the primary management response to wildfires in many areas globally. By removing less-extreme wildfires, this approach ensures that remaining wildfires burn under more extreme conditions. This is termed the “suppression bias”, and it fundamentally impacts wildfire activity, independent of fuel accumulation and climate change. Attempting to suppress all wildfires necessarily means that fires will burn with more severe and less diverse ecological impacts, with burned area increasing at faster rates than expected from fuel accumulation or climate change. Over a human lifespan, the modeled impacts of the suppression bias exceed those from fuel accumulation or climate change alone, suggesting that suppression may exert a significant and underappreciated influence on patterns of fire globally. Managing wildfires to safely burn under low and moderate conditions is thus a critical tool to address the growing wildfire crisis."
This event is part of a series:
Fire Lab Seminar Series
The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory has been hosting an annual seminar series since 1998. Hour-long seminars are presented by Fire Lab employees and other researchers from throughout the world. Seminars cover current research and management about the natural world from a broad range of disciplines, but most seminars usually have a wildland fire theme. The Fire Lab Seminar Series provides a platform for researchers and managers to present their work in an environment that encourages critical thought, the free exchange of ideas, and knowledge discovery. For more information, visit the Fire Lab Seminar Series page.