In red California, a deadly fire ignites political rage at liberal government

Research has shown that government fire suppression policies, along with the displacement of Indigenous people who performed cultural burning, have contributed to denser vegetation in the Klamath bioregion. But experts also say commercial logging can lead to the replacement of larger, fire-resistant trees with stands of abnormally dense and young trees that are more susceptible to carrying fire.

“There’s plenty of evidence to say that if you just did logging and thinning you could actually make the problem worse,” said Jeffrey Kane, a professor of fire ecology and fuels management at Cal Poly Humboldt. “Because it’s not just a matter of removing trees, it’s a matter of reducing fuels, and in many cases when you thin forest you don’t always remove the fuels.”