Naturalists Lecture Series

** No registration required **
Open to the public
$5 at door for non-study group members 

Lecture:  Why have Eastern Washington wildfires been so explosive and hard to control, and what can we do about it? 

When: 7:00pm to 9:00pm  
Where: Seattle Program Center - 7700 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle (Magnuson Park) - Goodman A
Cost: $5 for Mountaineer members and general public (free for Naturalists Study Group members) 

Paul Hessburg, a research landscape ecologist with the Forest Service, will focus on the natural role of wildfires in the pre-settlement era, and how human actions have unwittingly conspired to change that role. Decades of fire suppression have created a dense, fuel-laden landscape that Hessburg says is far from natural and is driving extreme wildfires.

Historical forests burned in a highly varied patchwork, with many small and relatively few large fires. There was a sort of natural resilience. “This patchwork of burned and recovering forest regulated the size and severity of future fires,” he explains.