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Toward a Solution

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A Beautifully Burned Forest

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I end with the idea that changes in public messaging coupled with modest modifications in our land management goals could produce a win-win situation with respect to conservation, commodity production, and human safety. We must abandon the currently popular good fire/bad fire message, where low-severity fire is seen as “good” and high-severity fire as “bad” for a conifer forest system. Climate-related changes in fire behavior cannot be used as a new justification for the expansion of timber harvesting and prescribed burning in western mixed-conifer forests; that approach will not address the climate crisis, and it will act against the creation and maintenance of the special burned forest conditions I have described.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

    Richard L. Hutto

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  1. Richard L. Hutto
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Hutto, R.L. (2025). Toward a Solution. In: A Beautifully Burned Forest . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-03180-8_16

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