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Impacts of Oregon’s 2017 wildfire season

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While news headlines were quick to capture the “cost” of firefighting, suppression represents only a fraction of the true cost of wildfire. There are huge impacts to air quality and health, school athletics, travel and tourism, employment and the economy, transportation, and iconic Oregon economic sectors such as the state’s wine and timber industries. No single state agency is charged with documenting these costs, so the Oregon Forest Resources Institute set out to gather what information is currently available, from media reports, individual interviews and hard-nosed research.

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Smoke and the role of prescribed fire

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Smoke from wildfires is a public health concern. Smoke affected the entire Pacific Northwest region in 2015, and again in 2017. Scientists developed the BlueSky Modeling Framework that forecasts where smoke will travel, allowing public health agencies and communities to prepare for smoke impacts. Wildfires are here to stay. Scientists predict that with climate change, the annual area burned will continue to increase. Learning to coexist with wildfire means we will have to learn to coexist with some amount of smoke.

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