On Sept. 8, 2020, a brush field in southern Oregon, in the northwestern U.S., caught fire. Over the next week, “walls” of flame tore through the towns of Talent and Phoenix in the Rogue River Valley. Here, hot, dry summers crisp low-lying vegetation, and convective winds — like those that kicked up in early September 2020 — can fan the spread of fire from even the smallest ignition. The 1,300-hectare (3,300-acre) Almeda Drive Fire was small by contemporary standards in the U.S. West, where blazes repeatedly shatter records. And this one was human-caused, as are more than 80% of fires in the U.S. But neither statistic made it any less devastating to the families of Talent and Phoenix, more than 2,600 of whom lost their homes to the blaze. Amid a swirling mix of past mismanagement of forests in the western U.S., an explosion of dense settlements, and hotter, drier conditions on account of climate change, there’s been a push in recent decades to actively manage forests for fire risk — aimed at avoiding disasters like the Almeda fire. The idea is that management tools such as forest thinning, prescribed burning and post-fire restoration can help claw back some of the characteristics of how forests used to be, when fire itself was a more active part of the landscape. The scientific literature is stacked with studies on the nuances of “active management,” both how to tailor it to different forest ecosystems, and arguing evidence for its success. Active management is…This article was originally published on Mongabay