I really appreciate all the politicians and reporters connecting the wildfires to climate change... but maybe we should also talk about forest management a bit more?

It’s well-established that a century of wildfire suppression has turned western forests in tinderboxes, as my old colleague @leddder wrote when we went through this in 2018. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/08/15/30818635/seattles-summers-should-be-a-bit-smoky

Obviously longer, hotter, drier summers exacerbates wildfire... but climate change can’t be fixed overnight, while controlled burns and other evidence-based fire management techniques could make a difference now. Use good fire to prevent bad fire. https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen

So I want to hear about climate change from Biden and Inslee and the media. But I also want to hear about what we can do to help fix the problem this decade, and the answer isn’t just to get off fossil fuels. All the solar panels in the world won’t fix the forests.