UnDisciplined: We probably can’t prevent forest fires. So what can we do instead?

By Matthew LaPlante

Published December 12, 2024 at 9:00 AM MST

a wildfire burins along a mountain range at night with orange smoke, and the lights of human buildings and streets in the foreground — Wildfires are burning higher into the mountains in the last 40 years.

In hindsight, it’s clear that a century of suppressing wildfires probably hasn’t made us safer in the U.S. West. But knowing what doesn’t work isn’t the same thing as knowing what does. So what do we do? What can we do? Ecologist Paul Rogers has some ideas for how to start answering these questions.

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Matthew LaPlante

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something occurred to him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be so brutally depressing all the time. These days, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects with his work on UnDisciplined — Utah Public Radio's weekly program on science and discovery.

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