Online Friday Forum tackles wildfires in Montana
From MSU News Service
The Osher Lifelong Institute at Montana State University, formerly MSU Wonderlust, will partner with the Bozeman Public Library Foundation to present “Wildfire in Montana: Past, Present & Future” for a Friday Forum. The event will take place noon to 1:30pm Friday, November 13th, and is free and open to the public.
David McWethy, assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the College of Letters and Science at MSU, will discuss the factors responsible for increasing wildfire activity in the West and describe some of the future challenges presented by wildfire in Montana and the Gallatin Valley.
According to McWethy, fire is an important process that has shaped Western ecosystems for ages. However, fire activity has increased over the past few decades and recently has become more violent. Homes and lives have been lost, on top of persistent smoke that creates hazardous air quality in the West. Changing climate conditions enable record-setting fire seasons throughout the West, creating sustained periods of hot weather that dry out fuels and are conducive to fires. At the same time, a growing number of homes and other structures are built in landscapes with abundant fuels, increasing the danger fires pose to human health and safety.
Fire scientist McWethy has a doctorate in Earth sciences from MSU and has studied fires and management practices for years. Some of his recent work has considered ways for towns and cities to prepare for wildfires by clearing potential fuels from around buildings and using controlled, prescribed burns to avoid building up caches of dry vegetation that could lead to conflagration. McWethy received a Fulbright grant to research wildfires in Chile and teach at the University of Concepcion from 2015 to 2016. He also participated in the eight-year, $4 million National Science Foundation Wildfire Partnership in Research and Education project, or WildFIRE PIRE.
McWethy will be introduced with remarks from Cathy Whitlock, Regents Professor in Earth sciences at MSU whose four-decade career has earned national and international recognition for her scholarship and leadership on past climate and environmental change. She has published more than 190 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters on the topics of vegetation, fire and climate history and in 2011 co-founded the Montana Institute on Ecosystems, which she directed until 2017.
She was lead author of the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment, a report released by the Institute on Ecosystems that details climate trends and the consequences for Montana’s water, forests and agriculture. Whitlock is currently lead investigator on the WildFIRE PIRE project and MSU co-investigator for recent National Science Foundation Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) projects in Montana.
Registration for the Friday Forum is required and can be done at montana.edu/wonderlust/register. Registrants will receive an email with the Webex link and instructions to join the program.
Friday Forums are a partnership between the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at MSU and the Bozeman Public Library Foundation. OLLI is a program of Academic Technology and Outreach at MSU. ATO works across the university to support and advance its land-grant mission through unique and innovative opportunities for outreach and engagement. •
