Staff Articles

April 29, 2015
By Christy Sherr
The Union Newspaper

The April 16 opinion piece featured a forester with Sierra Pacific Industries who discussed historical assumptions about our Sierra Nevada forests and their complex relationship with fire. Scientists are examining these assumptions, and finding repeatedly that these assumptions are wrong.

August 28, 2014
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Earth Island Journal

Massive logging proposal threatens many spotted owls, currently thriving in the fire-affected acres of Stanislaus National Forest.

June 3, 2014
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Earth Island Journal

The forest is coming back to life; Forest Service plan to log there is a bad idea.

April 30, 2014
By Monica Bond, Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala
CounterPunch

This winter California suffered its most severe drought in decades, with record-low rainfall and meager mountain snowpack. Drought, high summer temperatures, and wind together make the perfect storm for what some have termed “mega” forest fires that, in spite of fire suppression activities, sweep across the landscape and end only when winds die down and weather cools off.

September 15, 2013
By Dominick DellaSala & Chad Hanson
The Sacramento Bee

This year, as in every year, fires are occurring in the forests of the western United States. And, as always, we read the predictable headlines about how many acres of forest were “destroyed,” whether in Yellowstone National Park in the famous 1988 fires or today’s Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.

May 3, 2012
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
Forest Policy Pub

Despite reporting to the contrary, the blaze is a natural part of the fire regimes in the Sierra Nevada forests.

December 15, 2008
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
The Sacramento Bee

Reading Tom Knudson’s article about Sierra Nevada fires made me realize how badly some still misunderstand the ecology of fire in forests.

July 9, 2008
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
San Francisco Chronicle

Bonnicksen states, “The wildfire crisis is becoming more serious each year. Fires are getting bigger and more destructive, killing wildlife and polluting the air as well.”

July 9, 2008
By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.
CounterPunch

Recent editorials by timber industry spokespersons are a wildly misleading attempt to promote increased logging of western U.S. forests under the guise of reducing wildland fires and mitigating climate change.