On Fire, Out West

WAMU 88.5

Published October 12, 2017 at 9:06 AM CDT

Burned lawn chairs sit next to the swimming pool at the Journey's End Mobile Home Park in Santa Rosa, California. Wildfires that have burned tens of thousands of acres and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in several Northern California counties.

Wildfires continue to spread in the western United States, blazing through nearly every state west of the Rockies and leaving at least 17 people dead in California.

Every year, the wildfire season seems to get longer, to the point where it seems less like a season and more like a constant. If this is a new fact of life for the West, what can be done about it? Homeowners, farmers and a significant portion of the nation’s economy may need to adapt.

GUESTS

Eric Sagara, Senior Data Reporter, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

Cassandra Moseley, Senior Associate Vice President for Research, and director of the Ecosystem Workforce Program, University of Oregon

Michael Kodas, Deputy Director, Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado; author of Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame

Jon Keeley, Research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and adjunct professor of ecology at UCLA.

For more, visit https://the1a.org.