FUSEE in the News

News stories featuring FUSEE members

FUSEE members often deliver the poignant, pithy "pull quotes" for news stories. This is our archive of print and broadcast news stories that include interviews of our members and supporters.

2024

Featured
Deseret News
The uncertain fate of America’s iconic Christmas tree
Deseret News

Rich Fairbanks is among the rare-but-vocal landowners who support fire management, even as he questions some of the federal government’s efforts. He collaborated with a regional Prescribed Burn Association — the first of its kind in the state — to burn an acre of land right by his home.

He wishes more landowners would realize that to protect the forest, it needs to burn occasionally.

Read More →
Deseret News
New York Times
There’s a Simple Way to Stop Dangerous Wildfires. We Barely Use It.
New York Times

Latest writing by Friend of FUSEE, M.R. O’Connor. She lives in Brooklyn and is author of the recent book, “Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World.” This article continues her journey of discovery within the fire practitioner movement.

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New York Times
Eugene Weekly
Working with fire: Eugene-based organization FUSEE celebrates 20 years of rethinking what we think we know about wildfires
Eugene Weekly

Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology is celebrating 20 years of advocating for change in wildfire media coverage and management. For FUSEE members, proactive fire lighting can solve the wildfire crisis. This stance has been historically underrepresented in media and policy because of the conventional narrative that fire suppression and logging will prevent wildfire damage.

“We’re torch bearers for a new paradigm of fire management” says founder and executive director Timothy Ingalsbee, echoing FUSEE’s slogan. Over its 20 years FUSEE has been featured in over 400 news stories and has had a national impact on wildfire policy.

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Eugene Weekly
Eugene Weekly
Ten days of action: The Eugene Environmental Film Festival starts Oct. 11 at Art House
Eugene Weekly

“Environmental justice is at the heart of this year’s festival,” says EEFF Director Ana McAbee in a press release. “We believe that films have the power to educate, inspire and mobilize communities.” Each day of the festival is hosted by either filmmakers or by local nonprofits working in collaboration with the festival. Those nonprofits include Mount Pisgah Arboretum, Beyond Toxics, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, the Edelic Center for Ethnobotanical Services, Friends of Family Farmers, BRING Recycling and the Willamette Resources and Educational Network.

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Eugene Weekly
Columbia Gorge News
How the Northwest Forest Plan may reshape management of our woods
Columbia Gorge News

“One of the biggest barriers is just risk-averse managers. There’s this double standard,” continued Ingalsbee. “They can light up an entire mountainside in a huge backfire, fighting the fire and celebrated as heroes. But if they try to light a prescribed fire and things go wrong, it could cost their career.”

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Columbia Gorge News
The Revelator
Wildfire Data Is Flawed — Here’s How to Fix It.
The Revelator

The U.S. Forest Service includes fire it intentionally sets as part of its acreage count of the nation’s “wildfires.” That presents an inaccurate picture.

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The Revelator
Seattle Times
Can Washington hack and burn its way out of a future of megafires?
Seattle Times

By the 1950s, wildfires that used to burn around 30 million acres each year now burned close to 3 million a year, said Timothy Ingalsbee, a wildfire ecologist and the executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. During these decades, forests across the American West were accumulating a fire deficit. Grasses, shrubs and trees that historically burned away collected and piled up.

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Seattle Times
Inside Climate News
In the Park Fire, an Indigenous cultural fire practitioner sees beyond destruction
Inside Climate News

Where others might see only catastrophe, Don Hankins scans fire-singed landscapes for signs of renewal.  

He identifies prohibitions on Indigenous cultural fires as some of the most destructive ecological policies in history for both Native cultures and the lands they traditionally stewarded. “Indigenous communities often recognize colonization as the beginning of the climate crisis,” Hankins wrote. “Spanish, Mexican, and American governments enacted policies enabling private ownership of land and forbidding Indigenous peoples from setting fires—often with extreme penalties (i.e., death).” A complex web of state and federal laws continues to severely limit cultural burning.

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Inside Climate News
Washington Post
A megafire overwhelmed even some of the best preparations. What’s next?
Washington Post

But there are already questions about whether it was enough. Zeke Lunder, a Chico resident and wildfire and fuels management expert, quickly pointed to an overgrowth of invasive thistle near the Park Fire ignition site that Chico could have reduced with a prescribed burn, as it recently had in other parts of Upper Bidwell Park.

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Washington Post
Counterpunch
The enormous flaw in wildfire data
Counterpunch

The first publicized example of such wildfire expansion was the 2002 Biscuit Fire. Timothy Ingalsbee, PhD of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology estimated that a large proportion of the Biscuit Fire was ignited by Forest Service firing operations. Inglasbee stated in a 2006 report largely focused on the Biscuit Fire: “…burnout operations can sometimes take place several miles away from the edge of a wildfire, or alternately, miles away from the fire containment line.” Wildfire expansions have increased since 2002, and wildfire starts, such as lightning strike ignitions, are often simply the “match that lit the fire” leading to numerous firing operation ignitions to implement intentional burns that they call wildfires.

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Counterpunch

2023

Featured
Around the O (Eugene, OR)
Fundraiser offers a chance to shoot hoops for a good cause
Around the O (Eugene, OR)

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month and bolster wildfire resiliency efforts, a group of University of Oregon students and alums are working with local Indigenous fire practitioners on a fun-for-all approach to fundraising: basketball.
The group is turning one of its favorite hobbies into social good by organizing Oregon’s first Wildfire Resilience Hoop-A-Thon on Nov. 19. The event takes place at the UO’s McArthur Court with the goal of raising $100,000 for workforce development and wildfire resilience efforts around the state.

“Our generation needs pathways for resilience so we can live with fire on the landscape,” said Kyle Trefny, a wildland firefighter, FireGeneration researcher and economics student at the UO. “We face hotter and drier times ahead, but by preparing proactively we can be ready for both wildfires and the prescribed and cultural burning we need on the land.”

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Around the O (Eugene, OR)
Los Angeles Times
It’s been 5 years since California’s deadliest wildfire. Can we stop it from happening again?
Los Angeles Times

Those efforts might benefit communities immediately adjacent to the work, but the overall impact is likely to be small in a state with more than 30 million acres of forestland, said Zeke Lunder, a Chico-based pyrogeographer who also runs The Lookout, a wildfire information website.


Fuel-reduction work is “not necessarily going to fundamentally change the megafire regime,” said Lunder, noting that the Dixie fire burned a nearly million acres despite forest treatments in the area. He added that the Camp fire quickly transitioned from a wildfire to an urban conflagration, which highlights the importance of home-hardening efforts in addition to forest management.

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Los Angeles Times
Santa Fe New Mexican
Burn before windy spring sparks uncontrolled blaze
Santa Fe New Mexican

The U.S. Forest Service is scrambling to correct the mistakes of generations of foresters who believed all fire was bad until the 1990s. Overgrazing, logging and fire suppression have left much of our forests in a mess, and the only realistic way to correct these past errors is with prescribed fire. Thinning close to homes and towns needs to happen, too, but the ultimate tool to protect wildlife habitat and ensure safety from future firestorms is prescribed fire.

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Santa Fe New Mexican
Whole Community News
FUSEE commends report, calls for paradigm shift from firefighting to firelighting
Whole Community News

Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, said the report essentially appeals for “a sociocultural paradigm shift” in society’s relationship with fire.

“Continued fire exclusion and systematic fire suppression is simply unsustainable from a socioeconomic and ecological standpoint,” Tim said. “All fire-dependent species and fire-adapted ecosystems in North America need more fire, not less, to recover from past fire exclusion and prepare for future climate change and wildfires.

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Whole Community News
Salem Statesman-Journal
Cause of Oregon's devastating 2020 Labor Day wildfires still remains unknown
Salem Statesman-Journal

It’s been more than three years since historic wildfires tore through multiple Oregon communities, burning 1 million acres and forever altering the lives of thousands.
As communities rebuild, survivors put their lives back together and lawsuits assign blame, one element of recovery remains missing: an official cause for almost all of the fires.
Of the nine major Labor Day fires that exploded in Oregon in September 2020, eight remain either under investigation, incomplete or have not been made public.
"It’s shocking to me that they have not concluded the fire investigations," said Tim Ingalsbee, executive director of the Eugene nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.

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Salem Statesman-Journal
The Independent (UK)
Maui firefighters admit to taking lunch as Lahaina fire reignited
The Independent (UK)

A crew of Maui firefighters took a lunch break on 8 August, thinking they had successfully tamped down a blaze threatening the town of Lahaina, only for the fire to later grow and race toward the historic town.

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The Independent (UK)
A wildland firefighter argues for setting more fires. Ryan Reed says: “In short, let’s look to Indigenous leadership.”
Willamette Week
A wildland firefighter argues for setting more fires. Ryan Reed says: “In short, let’s look to Indigenous leadership.”
Willamette Week

Reed is a member of the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok tribes in Northern California (those tribal lands are just across the Oregon border, and he got an environmental studies degree at the University of Oregon). Those tribes for years have lobbied the Forest Service for a return to Indigenous forestry practices, which include regular prescribed burns to reduce the underbrush that turns forests into tinderboxes. The concessions they’ve obtained—including the right for the Karuk Tribe to conduct controlled burns in Six Rivers National Forest—have been hard won.

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Willamette Week
Wall Street Journal
Maui firefighters took lunch as Lahaina blaze seemed dead. Then it grew.
Wall Street Journal

Timothy Ingalsbee, a fire ecologist who is executive director of the education and advocacy group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, said Maui firefighters appeared to have followed standard operating procedures.

“It’s not unreasonable that they would disengage from that fire that they thought was fully contained and controlled,” he said. “When you’ve got running flames elsewhere on the island and you’ve got a crew that’s been working hard and needs to get a bit of rest before facing more obvious fire risks, it’s understandable.”

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Wall Street Journal
The Oregonian
Fire as medicine: Using fire to manage forests, prevent catastrophic wildfires in the Northwest
The Oregonian

Indigenous communities in the region, including Reed’s, hope in turn that the tribal approach of setting beneficial fires will become a major facet of the Northwest Forest Plan’s update – and a way for people to reconnect with the land they inhabit.“We as humans have a responsibility to the landscape,” Reed said. “We’ve had a disconnect with the reciprocal relationship with the landscape and now we’re starting to feel the consequences.”

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The Oregonian
KEZI-TV (Eugene)
Lane Community College's Fire Management program heading into its second year
KEZI-TV (Eugene)

Fires are becoming more prevalent now more than ever before, and fire crews are doing their best to keep them under control. But at Lane Community College, fire educators said a new approach is needed. Timothy Ingalsbee is one of the instructors of fire courses at LCC. He believes fires are inevitable no matter how much care is taken to prevent them. That's why their program focuses more on wildfire behavior and learning how to map out fires instead of fire suppression.

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KEZI-TV (Eugene)

2022

Featured
Salon.com
Learning to Love — and Protect — Burned Trees. Wildfire-killed trees are some of the most important structures in a forest. So why are they still being logged?
Salon.com

Dead trees, known as “snags,” are some of the most valuable wildlife structures in the forest and help support hundreds of animals.
“A tree really has a second life after it’s been killed, particularly with fire-killed trees, which decay far slower than if a tree succumbs to disease or insects,” says Timothy Ingalsbee, a wildfire ecologist and executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. “I’ve called them ‘living dead trees.’”

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Salon.com
The Wildlife News
Elemental wildfire documentary worth viewing
The Wildlife News

The documentary’s central theme is that wildfires are primarily driven by climate/weather and that fuel treatments are ineffective in protecting communities. Home hardening, not logging, makes communities safe.
As Dr. Timothy Ingalsbee of Firefighters United For Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) says in the video, we need to change our entire paradigm toward wildfire. Instead of trying to suppress or prevent wildfires, we need to develop a new relationship with the blazes.

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The Wildlife News
Oregon Public Broadcasting
An arrest in Oregon worries those who want to prescribe more fire on the land
Oregon Public Broadcasting

“We’ve created a real problem,” said Rich Fairbanks, a forest landowner in Jackson County and a longtime firefighter. “The basic idea is if you get rid of low-severity fire, you get high-severity fire. You get rid of controlled burning, all you really lose is the control.”

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Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Union
Terry McLaughlin: Dixie and Paradise Fires
The Union

In 2005, Tim Ingalsbee, a wildland firefighter since 1980 with a doctorate in environmental sociology, started Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, and has been trying ever since to educate Congress and anyone else who would listen about the misguided fire policy which has led to the megafires we have seen in California in the past decade. “It’s horrible to see this happening” he said, “when the science is so clear and has been for years. . . Every year I warn people: Disaster’s coming. We’ve got to change. And no one listens. And then it happens.”

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The Union
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Grant County Sheriff arrests US Forest Service employee after prescribed burn jumps to private property
Oregon Public Broadcasting

Some firefighters say the agency has a history of going silent when mistakes are made or even blaming firefighters.
“Historically the Forest Service has a terrible record of not defending employees,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, a veteran wildland firefighter who now runs Firefighters United For Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, a group that advocates for more responsible fire management. “They’re regularly thrown under the bus for the greater good of the agency.”

Ingalsbee said he would expect the Forest Service to voice support for its employees.
“This employee was doing this at the behest of his agency for the benefit of the lands they manage,” Ingalsbee said.

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Oregon Public Broadcasting
Bay Nature Magazine
Logjam: The supply chain problem that’s keeping California from preventing catastrophic wildfires on private land
Bay Nature Magazine

Timothy Ingalsbee has been watching the gyrations of federal forest policy from Oregon, where he is executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. In the 1980s, he was a self-described environmental activist who spent years protesting clear-cut logging of old-growth forests. Today, he says, small woodlot owners may have the best shot at establishing forests that can take the heat of fire and the dry of drought. Most are invested in their land for the long term and can plan to earn revenue from their forests through carbon storage as well as lumber. They have the incentive to think creatively about using wood, not only in harvest techniques but end uses: “making bigger things with smaller logs. Maybe even reviving logging as a craft skill,” Ingalsbee says.

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Bay Nature Magazine
National Public Radio
Prescribed burns started a wildfire, but experts say they're a crucial tool
National Public Radio

MATTHEW HURTEAU: A lot of the planning tools that fire managers rely upon for planning prescribed burns were built under a climate that no longer exists.
CHANG: Last year, the U.S. government spent a record $4.3 billion on fire suppression - something that has actually worsened wildfire conditions. Meanwhile, from 2009 to 2018, just over $500 million were spent per year on treatments to reduce wildfire fuel like prescribed burns. Experts like fire ecologist Timothy Ingalsbee argue the agency should rethink its priorities.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: If we were to shift those resources and that funding into prescribed burning, that would be a big help.

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National Public Radio
E & E News
N.M. debacle won’t deter Forest Service prescribed burns
E & E News

Although the report encourages the use of prescribed fire, one advocate for the practice told E&E News on Friday that he worries the Forest Service may be adding layers of bureaucracy.

“It’s going to require a lot more paperwork,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, in Eugene, Ore.

The report’s emphasis on promoting fire as a tool was comforting, Ingalsbee said. But he added that one related practice that’s increased dramatically — “back fires” lit to influence the behavior of wildfires already in progress — received little attention.

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E & E News
Eugene Weekly
Extinguishing fears
Eugene Weekly

Elemental: Reimagining Our Relationship With Wildfire isn’t supposed to be grim, communicating that climate change will increase the likelihood of extreme wildfires and that it’s “game over,” Jennings says. The documentary features incredible shots of Oregon terrain burned in 2020 and explores how people in wildland-urban interface areas can co-exist with wildfires and how communities can withstand the most extreme climate change-caused mega disasters.

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Eugene Weekly
National Public Radio
The Forest Service's ban on controlled burns has come to a close
National Public Radio

Rich Fairbanks spent most of his career fighting fires for the Forest Service. He says the whole issue of controlled burns gets political real quick.

RICH FAIRBANKS: You got to admit, it's a very risky thing to ask some senior land manager to light a fire in the winter when, if it gets away, it's on him, than to fight a wildfire where you're a hero no matter what happens.

SIEGLER: Still, foresters like Fairbanks are seeing a slow evolution within the Forest Service and the public - an acceptance that fire is a critical part of the ecosystem and it needs to be brought back if we're ever going to make some of these modern, extreme wildfires even just manageable again. In the Democrats' new infrastructure and inflation laws, tens of millions of dollars are going to preventative projects like tree thinning and controlled burning.

Read More →
National Public Radio

2021

Featured
Slate
The U.S. government is wasting billions on wildfire policy that doesn’t work
Slate

More than 6.5 million acres in the U.S. have been affected by fire so far this year. The Dixie Fire, at nearly 1 million acres burned, was the second-largest fire in California’s history. Faced with such catastrophic wildfires, it seems only natural for fire services to respond with every resource available. But according to many of the country’s most respected fire experts, there is little evidence that most of these fire suppression campaigns are effective. These critics say that the current practice of trying to suppress every big wildfire is foolhardy, especially given the huge, climate-driven fires more and more common in the West. Some blame this policy on what they call the fire-industrial complex: a collection of the major governmental fire agencies and hundreds of private contractors, who are motivated by a mixture of institutional inertia, profiteering, and desperation.

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Slate
Jefferson Public Radio
Using the old burns to help lessen the new burns
Jefferson Public Radio

When you hear that a fire burned 100,000 acres, the degree of burning can vary wildly inside that perimeter. In fact, some patches may not have burned at all.
This is the "mosaic" of fire, where burned land is not burned evenly. The firefighter group FUSEE--Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology--advocates making use of the fire mosaic to lessen the intensity of future fires in the same area.
We explore the concepts with FUSEE Executive Director Timothy Ingalsbee and Mike Beasley, retired Fire Management Officer for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service.

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Jefferson Public Radio
Eugene Weekly
Timber, Interrupted
Eugene Weekly

Anti-logging environmentalists protest Freres Lumber Company's executive's presentation at Knight Law Center, the day after activists announce an occupation to stop post-wildfire logging.

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Eugene Weekly
The Malibu Times
Environmental groups, scientists raise concerns over Monsanto’s Phos-Chek
The Malibu Times

Tim Ingalsbee, a fire ecologist, told EHN that aerial retardant is used wastefully, and that resources should instead be directed towards preventative strategies like prescribed burns, ecological fire management, and getting more firefighters.

Read More →
The Malibu Times
Reuters
U.S. firefighters on climate frontline face 'broken' health system
Reuters

From 2017 to 2020, 2,500 work-related injuries or illnesses were reported on average each year by the roughly 10,000-strong U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighting force – the nation's biggest wildland force, a database provided to the Thomson Reuters Foundation showed.
"Our occupation is very risky, with high consequences ... We have to make sure we're taking care of people," said Kelly Martin, president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a group lobbying for better workplace protections.
Too often, that is not the case, she said.

Read More →
Reuters

2020

2019

Fire is medicine: The tribes burning California forests to save them
The Guardian (Nov. 21)

Fire management in southwestern Oregon
Medford Mail Tribune (Op-Ed) (Nov. 10)

Paradise rebuilds but danger may still lurk year after fire
Washington Post and Associated Press (Nov. 6)

Fact-Checking Trump’s Tweets on the California Fires
Outside Magazine (Nov. 5)

California can expect more blackouts as utilities companies move to stop fires — and lawsuits.
Are preemptive power outages the new normal?
The Verge (Oct. 10)

2,000 sequoia trees by 2021: Leaving a legacy for the future
KMTR-TV, Eugene (Oct. 3)

Oregon wildfire council recommends $4 billion in multi-decade plan to safeguard state
Salem Statesman Journal (Sept. 27)

Firefighter Group Critiques Oregon Governor’s Draft Wildfire Management Plan
Jefferson Public Radio (Sept. 17)

California must embrace fighting fire with fire
San Francisco Chronicle (Editorial) (Sept. 13)

A highly critical new report found that Cal Fire could have prevented injuries and damage from
the Mendocino Complex Fire
The New York Times, California Today section (Sept. 13)

Cal Fire’s battle plan against record Mendocino Complex fire assailed in new report
San Jose Press Democrat (September 12th)

Report: Cal Fire mishandled state’s largest wildfire. Group says agency ‘ignored science-based
risk assessments’ in Mendocino Complex Fire
NBC KCRA-TV, Sacramento (September 12th)

‘Dragon’ drones: the flame throwers fighting wildfires with fire
The Guardian (September 4th)

Everything you need to know about the fires in the Amazon
The Verge (August 28th)

Kamala Harris and her connection to inmate firefighters
Energy and Environment News (August 20th)

Forest Service lets blaze burn in Ariz. A new era?
Energy and Environment News (August 14th)

Goals of fighting fire with fire faces hurdles in US West
Associated Press (August 12th)

US Northwest towns ‘woefully unprepared’ as fire risk growsAssociated Press (August 4th)

City Club of Eugene: Climate Change And Wildfire Risks In Lane County
KLCC News (June 24)

Is It Time to Stop Building in Areas at High Risk for Fire?
KQED News (June 14)

“More Wildfires Bring Focus On How All That Smoke May Harm Firefighters”
National Public Radio (June 12)

“Fighting fire with fire: Should California burn its forests to protect against catastrophe?”
The Sacremento Bee (May 29)

“Not Enough Is Known About Smoke’s Effect on Wildland Firefighters’ Health”
Oregon Public Broadcasting (May 29)

“Timber Sale Fire Danger”
Eugene Weekly (May 2)

“Activist Alert”
Eugene Weekly (April 18)

“Air tanker drops are often useless for fighting wildfires, but politicians order them because they make good TV”
BoingBoing (April 15)

“Firefighting aircraft may be ‘increasingly ineffective’”
The Bulletin, Bend OR (April 9)

“Firefighting aircraft ‘increasingly ineffective’ amid worsening wildfires”
Los Angeles Times (April 7)

“FUSEE is not thinly veiled at all”
The World Coos Bay (April 6)

“FUSEE is a thinly veiled environmental group”
The World Coos Bay (April 3)

“Feds lay out conditions for Jordan Cove project go ahead”
The Registered Guard (April 2)

Firefighter group talks LNG at state legislature
The World Coos Bay (March 29)

“Firefighter Group Says LNG Pipeline Proposal Would Raise Wildfire Risk”
Jefferson Public Radio (March 28)

“It’s OK to bend the rules to make Californians safer from wildfire”
The Los Angeles Times Editorial (March 26)

“Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare emergency in California amid wildfire threats”
San Francisco Chronicle (March 22)

“Newsom declares wildfire emergency, waives environmental rules to expedite projects”
Los Angeles Times (March 22)

Report: Bulldozer Lines Failed To Contain Carr Fire
Jefferson Public Radio (March 18)

Report questions fighting wildfires with bulldozers
Energy and Environment News (March 18)

“Report Claims Redding’s Carr Fire Dozer Lines Were Ineffective”
KQED San Francisco (March 17)

“Environmentalist Firefighter Group Questions Use of Dozers to Battle Deadly Carr Fire in NorCal”
Associated Press (March 14)

“Bulldozers In The Wilderness: Are They Worth The Environmental Cost?”
Jefferson Public Radio (March 13)

“Time to Panic”The New York Times (February 16)

“Report criticizes fire agencies’ cooperation during Mendocino Complex blaze”
Los Angeles Times (February 8)

‘Sour taste’ lingers for furloughed firefighters
Energy and Environment News (January 30)

2018

 “Independent report attacks Forest Service firefighting costs”

Idyllwild Town Crier (December 27)

“A report about the Soberanes Fire suppression effort takes aim at U.S. Forest Service strategy”
Monterey County Weekly (December 20)

“Report calls Forest Service response to 2016 Big Sur fire a ‘firefighting boondoggle'”
KQED News (December 16)

“Report rips expensive decisions in California wildfire fight”
Associated Press (Washington Post, Seattle Times, etc.) (December 15)

“FORESTS: Are feds over-fighting fires? Critics point to this blaze”
Energy & Environment News-Climatewire (December 13)

“Wildland Firefighters Challenge Firefighting Tactics”
Jefferson Exchange, hour-long news talk show on Jefferson Public Radio (December 10)

“The Misunderstood Heroes Dancing With Flames to Save Lives”
MEL Magazine (November 22)

“How fire consumed the Forest Service budget”
Oregon Public Broadcasting’s EarthFix (October 24)

“Burning impact: What happens after the fire”
Medford Mail Tribune (October 14)

“Firefighting group expresses concern over inmate rape arrest”
Associated Press (September 5)

“Excessive use of fire retardant continues to prompt environmental concerns in California”
AccuWeather (August 24)

“Demand Is Rising For ‘Fire Bombers,’ But It’s Unclear If They Really Work”
Mountain West News Bureau (August 22)

“Too few ‘fire bombers’ as Western states burn this summer”
The Washington Post (August 19)

“When It Comes To Wildfire, Politics Lag Behind Science”
Oregon Public Broadcasting’s EarthFix (August 6)

“As wildfires rage, Trump administration plans to slash fire science funding”
Public Radio International’s Reveal (August 1)

“The inconvenient truth about forest fires”
Medford Mail Tribune   (July 29)

“Massive tree die-off brings unprecedented danger as wildfire burns near Yosemite”
Los Angeles Times (July 17)

“Can ‘moneyball’ fix how the west manages wildfire?”
Oregon Public Broadcasting’s EarthFix (July 16)

“Fire and Naturally Emerging Young Forests”
Locus Focus, hour-long news talk show on KBOO–Portland, OR (July 2)

“Hot debate: How to avoid an Oregon fire season like 2017”
Eugene Register-Guard (June 16)

“Aquatic weed thriving on surface of Santa Rosa’s Spring Lake may have link to fires”
Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA) (April 25)

“Finally, Congress Makes Progress on Fighting Wildfires: Measures in the federal government’s new spending bill should help the Forest Service manage fires, but there’s still more to be done.
Outside Magazine (March 23)

“Bill will modernize department’s fire-fighting equipment”
Homeland Preparedness News (January 15)

2017

“Fire Retardant Use Explodes as Worries About Water, Wildlife Grow”
Water Deeply/KQED (November 27)

“A 1960s Law Blocks Firefighting Contractors From Suing State”
KQED (November 8)

“Government Scientist Blocked from Talking About Climate and Wildfires: Critics are accusing the Trump administration of stifling the dissemination of taxpayer-funded science”
Scientific American and Energy and Environment News (October 31)

“Smokey Bear Propaganda”
Salem Weekly (October 13)

“What can be learned from California wildfires?”
Al Jazeera English (TV broadcast) (October 11)

“What the Trump administration doesn’t understand about wildfires”
Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed) (October 1)

“Stop With the ‘Catastrophic Wildfire’ Scare Tactics: It’s an alarmist, politically driven catchphrase. And, from a scientific perspective, it has little credibility”
Pacific Standard (August 15)

“Let Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows: A scientific debate is intensifying over whether too much money and too many lives are lost fighting forest fires”
New York Times (August 6)

“Rx Fire: Prescribed Fire can Save Oregon Forests”
Eugene Weekly (June 22)

“What’s Next for the March for Science”
Los Angeles Times (May 4)

“March for Science Rally”
CNN/C-SPAN broadcast (April 22)

“Come Together to Survive the Storm: How Communities Can Survive Disasters Caused by Climate Change”
Eugene Weekly (April 20)

“Casualties in Big Sur Blaze Point to Hazards of ‘Wildfire Gig Economy’”
KQED News (April 17)

2016

“Study: Climate Change Leading to More Forest Fires”
USA Today (October 11)

“Boeing Suggests New Weapon in Fighting Wildfires”
Seattle Times (August 25)

“Lawsuit Over Fireline Seeks to Curb Forest Firefighting Tactics”
Seattle Times (August 22)

“Let Wildfires Burn: Study Shows Forests Bounce Back on Their Own”
Yes! Magazine (August 19)

“Is Retardant Harmful to Wildlife? Some Say Yes”
Press Enterprise (July 29)

“Can This $10 Million Firefighting Machine Actually Stop Fires? A 747 Jet Gets Converted into a Fire-Retardant-Dumping Airtanker, Just in Time for Wildfire.”
Outside Magazine (May 11)

2015

“Five Unexpected Ways That Wildfires Affect Wildlife, Ecosystems of Forests”
AccuWeather.com (October 30)

“Snack Time for Predators! Six Weird Ways Wildfires Affect the Forest”
Live Science (September 29)

“Federal Land Management to Blame for Out-of-Control Fires, Say Critics”
FOX News.com (September 17)

“Scientist: We Need to Learn to Live with Wildfires”
Ashland Daily Tidings (July 7)

“New Approaches To Managing Big, Expensive Wildfires”
Think Out Loud radio broadcast, Oregon Public Broadcasting (May 27)

“After the Wars, Common Ground in Oregon’s Forests”
InvestigateWest (April 27)

“Studies Question Wisdom of Thinning Forests to Stop Fires”
The New Mexican (April 11)

2014

“Why Heavy Rains Probably Won’t Do Much Good in Drought-Stricken California”
The Christian Science Monitor (August 7)

“California Wildfire Being Tamed, But Is State Near Breaking Point For Fires?
The Christian Science Monitor (June 17)

“Wildfires Fan Growth of Private Firefighting Crews”
The Coloradoan (May 31)

“Global Wildfire Scientists Discuss Management Strategies”
ABC/FOX Montana.com (May 20)

“Bend Symposium to Study Wildfire Science, Impacts; Expert: Steering, Not Stopping Fire Safer, Cheaper, Better”
KTVZ.COM (April 1)

“Experts Debate Challenges of Adapting to Wildfires”
Santa Fe New Mexican (February 26)

2013

“Creative Accounting: How “Fire Borrowing” Impacts All Public Land Use”
Missoula Independent (December 5)

“Fighting Fires is Big Business for Private Companies: As the Private Firefighting Industry has Grown, So Too has its Political Clout”
Earth Island Journal (October 29)

“Ecologists Say Fire Suppression Efforts Left Century’s Worth Of Fuel For Rim Fire”
Associated Press (August 27)

“Hotshots, Linked by Fate: Fatal Wildfires Bear Similarities”
The Bend Bulletin (July 21)

“While Mourning 19 Dead, US Again Prepares to Ax Wildfire Prevention Funds”
NBC News (July 9)

“Firefighter Advocate Calls for Changes in Wildfire Strategy”
KARE11 news.com (July 1)

“Amid Wildfire’s Ashes, Some Criticisms Spring”
Las Vegas Review-Journal (July 1)

“Arizona Wildfire Kills 19 Firefighters”
Los Angeles Times (June 30)

“Experts Predict More Megafires in Summer 2013”
Outdoor Life Magazine (June 21)

“Fighting More Forest Fires Will Come Back to Burn Us”
OnEarth (June 19)

“U.S. Forest Service Struggles to Manage Wildfires After Sequestration”
The International (April 7)

“Forest Service Chief Says No Change in ‘Let Burn’ Policy for 2013”
Energy and Environment News Daily (March 13)

“Forest Service Policy Changes: Policy for Fighting Wildfires Reversed from 2012 Allowing Some to Burn”
Disaster News Network (March 12)

“Fire Suppression Flip-Flop”
High Country News (March 11)

“U.S. Forest Service Moves Away from Fire Policy”
FireEngineering.com (March 9)

“Forest Service May Let More Fires Burn”
Associated Press (March 8)

“Forest Service on Wildfires: Burn, Baby, Burn: The Agency Appears to Have Backed Off Its Controversial “Aggressive Initial Attack” Strategy for Wildfires”
Mother Jones (March 8)

“Forest Service Fire Policy Change May Let More Wildfires Burn Out Naturally”
Huffington Post (March 8)

“Forest Service Decides to ‘Let It Burn’”
Salon (March 8)

“Forest Service May Let More Fires Burn This Year After Coming in $400M Over Budget Last Year”
FOX News.com (March 8)

“U.S. Forest Service Adopts New (Old) Wildfire Policy”
KBOI2.com (Boise, ID) (March 8)

“Forest Service Appears to Shift Controversial — and Shortsighted — Firefighting Policy”
OnEarth (March 7)

“Forest Service Hits Reverse on Firefighting Policy”
Public News Service (March 6)

“Forest Service Letter Gives Vague Ideas About Fighting Wildfires”
NBC Montana.com (March 6)

2012

“The Burning Issue: America’s War on Wildfire”
Radio Project documentary broadcast on KPFA and other NPR stations (Sept. 20)

“Report: ‘Extremely Unsafe’ Tactics At Blaze That Killed Firefighter”
Northwest News Network (broadcast on Public Radio stations in PacNW) (Aug. 20)

“Special Report: The Politics of Wildfires”
Mint Press (July 10)

“INLAND: Officials confident despite fewer wildland fire resources”
Riverside Press Enterprise (May 12)

“U.S. Forest Service’s plan to replace air tanker fleet draws criticism”
Redding Record-Searchlight (Feb. 14)

2011

“A Burning Problem: Why good policies and good intentions won’t stop big, destructive wildfires”
High Country News (October)

“Burnin’ love: Monster wildfires have become the new normal”
Missoula Independent (June 21)

“California cancels Sacramento firm’s contract to provide firefighting planes”
Sacramento Bee (July 30)

“Cal Fire adapts to cuts; engines are reduced to 3 crew members”
Redding Record-Searchlight (July 19)

“Fire fight: Forest Service explores chemical retardant hazards”
High Country News (June)

2010

“Massive 1910 Blazes Still Affecting Northern Rockies After 100 Years”
The Missoulian (August 21)

“Wildfires: Report Warns of Escalating Suppression Costs in Wildland-Urban Interface”
Environment and Energy News Daily (August 19)

“Forests: Drier, Hotter Conditions Place Prescribed Fire Projects Under Scrutiny”
Environment and Energy Daily (April 15)

2009

“Climate: Scientists Prescribe Controlled Burns to Protect Forests, Curb Emissions”
Environment and Energy News Daily (December 1)

“Ecologists Decry Efforts to Douse Fire”
Redding Record-Searchlight (July 19)

“Debate Rages On Over Firefighting”
Trinity Journal (June 10)

“The Way Forward: There’s Little Agreement Among Policymakers on Solutions to Reducing Fire Risk”
Redding Record-Searchlight (May 17)

“Are Firefighting ‘Air Shows’ Effective?”
Redding Record-Searchlight (May 3)

“Fires Reignite Burnout Controversy”
Redding Record-Searchlight (May 1)

“Mission Impossible: Ecologists Agree that There is No Way to Win the War Against Wildfire”
Earth Island Journal (Winter)

2008

“Is Fire Retardant Harmful?”
CBS News (national broadcast) (November 16)

“In Fighting Wildfires, Concerns About Chemicals”
New York Times (November 15)

“A Healing Flame: As Fire Season Subsides, Crews are Using Controlled Burns to Keep Forests Healthy–And to Prevent Catastrophic Blazes in the Future”
Bend Bulletin (October 19)

“New Method of Fighting Wildfires to Get Airing”
Billings Gazette (September 23)

“Fire in Idaho: Lessons from the 2007 Wildfires”
Northern Rockies Radio News Service, (September 3) (distributed through the Clear Channel News Network to 460 news talk shows across the country)

“As wildfires spread, so does the red ink”
Christian Science Monitor (August 27)

“Forest Service allows controlled burns in state again”
Sacramento Bee (August 22)

“Black Saturday’s lessons still debated. Response to this year’s blazes shows how policies spawned by the fires of ’88 have been disregarded – or carried out”
Idaho Statesman (August 20)

“Forest Management, Fire Prevention, and Climate Change”
KUOW-Seattle (August 18) (hour-long live radio interview with two FUSEE members)

“Worry Over Tactics Grows After Firefighter Deaths”
Associated Press (August 14)

“Smoky Skies Put Fire Crews in Wilderness. Critics Question Forester’s Decision to Suppress All Fires”
Medford Mail Tribune (August 14)

“Wildfire Contracting Costs Too High, Critics Say: Some People Question the Expenses, Quality of Training and Oversight of Private Fire Crews”
Portland Oregonian (August 12)

“‘Let It Burn’ Policy Banned for Fire Season”
Sacramento Bee (August 9)

“Critics Ask Whether Wildfire Needed to be Fought”
Portland Oregonian (August 9)

“Ban on California Fire Practice to ‘Let Burn’ Those That Pose No Threat Draws Criticism”
McClatchy News Service (August 8)

“How National Parks Manage Fire Risk. Blaze Near Yosemite, Mostly Under Control, Shows
Limits to the Parks’ ‘Let It Burn’ Policy”
Christian Science Monitor (August 4)

“Wildfire and Climate Change”
KBOO Radio (July30) (featured guest on 90 minute talk show)

“Air Tanker Drops in Wildfires Are Often Just For Show”
Los Angeles Time (July 29)

“Private Firefighters’ Role Growing in State”
San Francisco Chronicle (July 27)

“Yellowstone Fires 20 Years Later: Park Blazes Changed Attitudes”
Billings Gazette (July 5)

“Fire Retardant Effects and Alternatives”
KBOO Radio (April 12)

“Scorched Earth Policy”
Eugene Weekly (Mar. 13)

“Global Warming Ignites Wildfires”
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) (March)

“Ancient Rings of Fire Don’t Bode Well for Inland Empire Wildfires”
Riverside Press-Enterprise (Jan. 31)

2007

“The Fire This Time”
Time Magazine, Vol. 170, No. 19, pgs. 32-43 (Nov. 5)

“The San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management”
KPFK-Los Angeles (Nov. 5) (half-hour live radio interview)

“The Burning Question. The California Inferno has Ignited the Long-Smoldering Debate Over Whether We have Brought Mother Nature’s Revenge Upon Ourselves”
Salon.com (Oct. 27)

“Firefighters Hesitating to Risk Lives for Homes Owners Haven’t Protected”
Associated Press / MSNBC.com (Oct. 2)

“New Fire Report Puts Blame on Slash Piles”
Tahoe Daily Tribune / Bonanza News Service (Aug. 29)

“Governor Declares Emergency: Large Idaho Fires Expected to Merge”
Associated Press (Aug. 21)

“This is what a Wildfire Looks Like”
Spokane Spokesman-Review (Aug. 21)

“Waialua Brushfire was ‘the Fire of the Future’: Ecological Disaster Feared Once Rains Hit Brushfire Area”
Honolulu Advertiser (Aug. 18)

“Slash and Burn: Climate Change + Commercial Logging = Big Fire”
Missoula Independent (Aug. 16)

“Officials Seek to Contain Wildfire Costs: After a Sharply Critical Federal Report on Efforts to Hold Down Expenses, Managers Begin to Alter Long-Used Strategies and Front-Line Practices”
Los Angeles Times (July 29)

“Angora Fire: Averting Another Disaster. Bi-State Panel to Draft Tahoe Fire Rules as Studies Stress More Home Safety Steps”
Sacramento Bee (July 25)

“Tahoe Fire Yields Lessons”
Christian Science Monitor (June 29)

“Climate and Homes Factors in Increasing Wildfire Deaths”
Associated Press (Feb. 18)

“Heating Up: Climate Change is Beginning to Catch the Eye of Fire Planners”
Wildland Firefighter Magazine (Jan.)

2006

“Consider Fire Hazard of New Homes’ Sites”
Ontario Daily Bulletin (Nov. 29)

“Wildfire Threat is at Breaking Point, Officials Warn”
Newhouse News Service (Nov. 22)

“Scientists Fear climate change will hurt efforts to fight fires”
Associated Press (Nov. 13)

“Global Warming and Wildfires”
CNN National Broadcast (November 13)

“Let It Burn: The Battle Between Firefighting and Fire-Guiding”
L.A. Weekly (Sept. 20)

“Acreage Burned by Wildfires in 2006 Sets 45-Year High”
Associated Press (Sept. 13)

“Common Sense Touted as Best Way to Prevent Wildland Fires”
San Francisco Chronicle (July 12)

“Firefighters Battle Blazes with New Tools”
Christian Science Monitor (July 6)

“Forest Service Snubs Out Fire Plans”
Sacramento Bee (June 12)

“As Forest Officials Face Fire Season, Plans up in Smoke”
McClatchy News Service (June 11)

“Wildland Firefighters’ Group Seeks Defeat of Salvage Logging Bill”
Associated Press (May 10)

2005

“A Burning Question: Forest Fires Leave Nothing but a Cold, Charred, Lifeless Expanse in Their Wake. Or Do They?”
National Parks Magazine (Summer)

“Fears of Wildfire Rise With the Heat”
Portland Oregonian (August 7)

“Fanning the Flames: Climate Change Stacks Odds Against Fire Suppression”
Pacific Northwest Research Station Science Findings (July)

2004

“Jumbo Jet of a Firefighting Idea”
Seattle Times (December 29)

“U.S. Cuts Contracts on 33 Firefighting Planes”
Portland Oregonian (May 11)

“Forest Service Paints Blurry Picture”
Los Angeles Times (April 11) (also A.P., CNN, MSNBC)

“Colorado Wild Cites Abuses for Halt Order”
Durango Herald (February 22)

“Wildland Firefighting Focus Shifting: Ecologist Calls for Broader Job for Wildland Firefighters” Spokane Spokesman-Review and Associated Press (February 8)