I'm listening to this on a day I cannot leave the house because air quality is HAZARDOUS from wildfires 100 miles away. This information needs to be sent to the people who can do something about it.

Can we learn collectively to do what is necessary to save these precious shared resources - our great forests of North America? Hoping these great video resources dealing with fire Ecology go viral.

Zoning restrictions need to be added to slow down the tendency to build houses in the wildland/urban interface. This may happen anyway by insurance companies refusing to insure cabins in the woods. That would be a good thing. Also, the Forest Service needs money to apply to controlled burn programs and they need the philosophical will to do the burning. They have been the protectors of commercial timber harvesting for too long. Paul doesn't say this but the Forest service prevents wildfires because fires burn commercially valuable trees. The Forest Service's budget is partially dependent on tree harvesting so they have the incentive to prevent all burning. The replanting programs need to be managed better as well. Currently they tend to plant the commercially valuable trees rather than focussing on diversity of species. They plant too close, 10 feet apart usually, so the growing trees then touch providing a pathway for fires. They do this because they can then thin the forest and commercially harvest the thinned trees. If the forests are allowed to self seed, you get more diversity, and more widely spaced growth. Often the replanted hillsides are plowed, all stumps removed, the soil completely disturbed causing erosion and the eradication of mycelial networks , decaying roots and underground wildlife. A forest should not be treated like a corn crop. It is a complex system that includes fire as a mechanism. Timber can be harvested appropriately but it must be approached in more ecological, and historical manner.

he does a good job speaking in a steady, clear, engaging, personal way, which includes scientific factual information well integrated. It's a user-friendly talk for me.

Powerful message for everyone !

We forgot how to use fire.

So small clearcuts with controlled slash burning will closely replicate the natural order while bringing in revenue. This is what rural logging communities have been saying for decades. Gotta thin those forest out. It is interesting how wildfires don't get crazy on privately held and managed timberlands.

Big clearcuts tied to appropriate defensible boundaries followed by broadcast slash burning in the fall....in other words closely simulate the natural order.

Thank you for sharing this vital message. The Australian Government banned burns offs 10 years ago. They didnt listen to the elders and keepers of this land. Now as a result this country is going up in flames. I hope the world learns from the Australian mega fires and make the changes that are needed. P.s.. Aboriginals, Native Americans, ect They new their land inside out, working with nature. I wish they held the power to make all decisions that involve our planets well being. They are the peace keepers of the lands.

Fantastic Ted talk! It's interesting how this was 5 years ago and I feel like nothing's changed except for the fires are getting worse, burning hotter, and smoke thicker. I also wonder why no one ever mentions how much Working Forests and their dense monoculture contribute to this tinderbox situation as well?

This is SOO important. We are developing smoke seasons that are killing people, TODAY

Manage the woods Harvest the timber on a sustained yield management or nature will manage them for us. You also left out the crippling of the logging industry so that huge swaths of forest are allowed to overcrowd.

Paul Hessburg is now saying, "I told you so." Will we learn from this?

I'm happy about the fires. I am devastated by the Capitolistick practice of selling off our nutrients.

...pretty good....I don't agree with his rather optimistic "herd natural fires around stuff" but good otherwise....

All that pesky CO2 is making the trees drunk

We are in the process of siphoning off billions of taxpayer dollars to big pharma, big oil, the military industrial complex etc. Unfortunately there is no budget for issues that do not enrich the corporate interest that run/own our "leaders" and this country.

10:27 Oh, houses still have sceletons while tree canopies are gone? What then explains just the opposite happening in the Paradise fire?

Paul, you say this is a social problem. If this is so, then couldn't one argue that complete fire suppression, as we used to do, is the best answer? There is a $ cost to this, of course, since there is much more fuel load than in the past. And sometimes the fires will get out of hand and burn homes. But the argument would be that since there are people/homes spreading all throughout most of those forests, then protecting those homes is the first priority. You argue that we protect those homes through prescribed burns and re-creating the patchwork forests. This has 2 negative effects, one is the smoke from the prescribed burns and the other is people prefer the dense forests over the patchwork. If you define this as a social problem, then it is about people. People don't want their homes burned and they prefer to see the thick forest (they also don't want smoke from fires). Returning to the patchwork will cost money and and so, too, will continued fire suppression the way I suggest. If it is a "social problem" then the better solution is better/more fire suppression. If one considers the environment side of the equation, and all the environmentalist crowd pushing for the environment, then returning to the patchwork is the right way to go. I just don't see this as being defined as a social problem as the right way to go. To do so will undermine your argument.

Is the driver on mismanagement the political clout of those who built and/or grazed where they really shouldn't have?

Log it. Graze it. Or watch it burn.