Susan Prichard – UW News

Q&A: As smoke blankets Washington, UW experts share how they navigate wildfire season

Alden Woods — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 19:53:22 +0000

As fires rage and smoke smothers the Pacific Northwest, UW News sat down with five UW experts in fire science, forestry, air pollution and more to ask how they manage wildfire season.

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Q&A: Wildfire in protected NW Forests highlights need for strategy updates

Gillian Dohrn — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:05:39 +0000

�� researchers show that wildfire is increasingly impacting lands managed under the Northwest Forest Plan, a seminal measure enacted in 1994 to preserve habitat for endangered species.

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New report ‘braids’ Indigenous and Western knowledge for forest adaptation strategies against climate change

James Urton — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:00:24 +0000

Forests could also be potential bulwarks against climate change. But, increasingly severe droughts and wildfires, invasive species, and large insect outbreaks — all intensified by climate change — are straining many national forests and surrounding lands. A report by a team of 40 experts outlines a new approach to forest stewardship that “braids together” Indigenous knowledge and Western science to conserve and restore more resilient forestlands. Published March 25, the report provides foundational material to inform future work on climate-smart adaptive management practices for USDA Forest Service land managers.

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REBURN: A new tool to model wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and beyond

James Urton — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:25:21 +0000

Researchers with the �� and the U.S. Forest Service have developed a new tool, REBURN, that can simulate large forest landscapes and wildfire dynamics over decades or centuries under different wildfire management strategies. The model can simulate the consequences of extinguishing all wildfires regardless of size, which was done for much of the 20th century and has contributed to a rise in large and severe wildfires, or of allowing certain fires to return to uninhabited areas to help create a more "patchwork" forest structure that can help lessen fire severity. REBURN can also simulate conditions where more benign forest landscape dynamics have fully recovered in an area.

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Consensus approach proposed to protect human health from intentional and wild forest fires

Jake Ellison — Sat, 07 May 2022 14:36:49 +0000

All forest fire smoke is bad for people, but not all fires in forests are bad. This is the conundrum faced by experts in forest management and public health: Climate change and decades of fire suppression that have increased fuels are contributing to larger and more intense wildfires and, in order to improve forest health and reduce these explosive fires, prescribed and managed fire is necessary. Video: Experts collaborate to troubleshoot necessary fires and harmful smoke Journalists: Download soundbites...

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New report: State of the science on western wildfires, forests and climate change

Michelle Ma — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 18:17:31 +0000

Seeing the urgent need for change, a team of scientists from leading research universities, conservation organizations and government laboratories across the West has produced a synthesis of the scientific literature that clearly lays out the established science and strength of evidence on climate change, wildfire and forest management for seasonally dry forests. The goal is to give land managers and others across the West access to a unified resource that summarizes the best-available science so they can make decisions about how to manage their landscapes.

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Fighting fire with fire in the Methow Valley

Jackson Holtz — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 22:14:32 +0000

Agencies that are well practiced in putting out wildfires are now learning a new skill: how to set the spark and fan the flames. That's the case for the state Department of Natural Resources, which is starting to use prescribed burning as part of its strategy for fighting wildfires.

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Thinning, prescribed burns protected forests during the massive Carlton Complex wildfire

Michelle Ma — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 16:52:23 +0000

In the first major study following the devastating Carlton Complex fire in north central Washington, researchers from the �� and U.S. Forest Service found that previous tree thinning and prescribed burns helped forests survive the fire.

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Better wildfire and smoke predictions with new vegetation database

Michelle Ma — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 15:12:01 +0000

Researchers from the �� and Michigan Technological University have created the first comprehensive database of all the wildfire fuels that have been measured across North America. Ultimately, it can help scientists make more informed decisions about fire and smoke situations.

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