The forests in Oregon are constantly evolving and changing. In this past year, Oregon forests have seen devastating and massive wildfires that are shaping the landscape for years to come. Paul Hessburg, research landscape ecologist, talks about the fact that we are living in the Era of the Megafire, and fundamentally, we need to learn to live with fire in our forests. “But we have to make some decisions about how we're going to live with fire. The not having fire is an option that's not on the table. Not having smoke is also a non-option. They're there for the foreseeable future for generations until the climate changes so that fire is a low probability occurrence, and it becomes cooler, but that's not on the horizon,” said Hessburg.

Produced by Ceili Cornelius.
UO Science Story 2021.