This week’s episode is the third in a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change in the United States and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Kimi Barrett, a research and policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, about wildfires in the American West. Barrett discusses the growing wildfire problem in the West; how climate change is affecting wildfire in the region; the ecological function of wildfire; and how local and state governments in the West are mitigating wildfire risk.

References and recommendations:

“Building for Wildfire” from Headwaters Economics; https://headwaterseconomics.org/headwaters/building-for-wildfire/

Books by Stephen J. Pyne; https://www.stephenpyne.com/works.htm

“The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan; https://www.timothyeganbooks.com/the-big-burn

“How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface” by David E. Calkin, Jack D. Cohen, Mark A. Finney, and Matthew P. Thompson; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1315088111