Nuances in fire history and management: Lessons from Oregon

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For this webinar, we are joined by Dr. Andrew Merschel, Postdoctoral Scholar with ORISE and the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and Dr. Chris Dunn, Assistant Professor at Oregon State University.

Dr. Andrew Merschel: The largest, tallest, and often the longest-lived species of nine conifer genera are found in temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. Newly developed fire and tree establishment histories are challenging paradigms regarding how old-growth trees and forests developed their iconic structurally diversity and their tremendous biomass. This presentation will review annually precise reconstructions of fire and forest development history that reveal how low- to moderate-severity fire and Indigenous fire stewardship historically shaped old trees and forests.

Dr. Chris Dunn: In 2021, Oregon’s Legislature passed Senate Bill 762 requiring Oregon State University, in collaboration with Oregon Department of Forestry, to create a wildland-urban interface map coupled with a wildfire hazard map to narrow regulation of the home ignition zone to only those properties at high or extreme risk. Upon release, the public exploded with anger, fueled in part by misinformation and false-narratives, including threats of violence, leading to retraction of the map. In this talk I will discuss the difficulty of integrating science with policy, how the public responded, and lessons learned relevant to state and local government policy actions.