WILDFIRES: CAN WE AVOID ANOTHER SUMMER LIKE THIS ONE?

posted by Michael Chihak

Cooperation among disparate and often competing individuals and interests and customized, strategic approaches to forest management are the long-term keys to minimizing undesirable monster wildfires, experts say.

Friday's Arizona Week will include an update on the big fires that swept through huge swaths of northern, eastern and southern Arizona this summer and look at the politics, science and economics behind controlling wildfires.

Not all wildfires are undesirable, and not all will ever be controllable, knowledgeable experts say.

"I think we have to accept that in Arizona, particularly the White Mountains, fire is inevitable," Steve Pyne told Arizona Week in an interview for Friday. Pyne is a wildfire historian and a professor at Arizona State University.

"As long as we keep this as public land and we want to keep it in a quasi-wild state, fire is going to happen," Pyne said.

Besides Pyne, Northern Arizona University forestry Professor Molly E. Hunter will appear on the program. Hunter will discuss a Southwestern forest where rehab work has made a positive difference in minimizing unwanted wildfire damage.