Film on fire danger to western forests plays at West End
The Plumas County Fire Safe Council with the Feather River Land Trust, Feather River College and Spatial Informatics Group are hosting a free screening of the documentary “Wilder Than Wild: Fire, Forests, and the Future” on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m., at the West End Theatre in Quincy. Pizza will be provided.
Four years in the making, “Wilder than Wild” is a one-hour documentary that reveals how fire suppression and climate change have exposed Western forests to large, high severity wildfires, while greenhouse gases released from these fires contribute to global warming. This vicious cycle jeopardizes our forests and affects us all with extreme weather and more wildfires, some of which are now entering highly populated wildland-urban areas.
There is much at stake. Landscapes that store water and carbon, produce oxygen, and feed and shelter a diversity of wildlife are at risk. “We are losing forests at a rate which is causing them to be a contributor to the problem of global warming,” says Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board. According to fire historian Stephen Pyne, “Forests should be renewable, but with climate change and all the other problems that are going with it, we could see a large-scale conversion of forest — the equivalent of clearing it.”
Highlighting these issues with personal experience, filmmaker Kevin White takes us on a journey from the Rim Fire of 2013, which burned 257,000 acres in the central Sierra, to the wine country wildfires of 2017, which destroyed 9,000 buildings and killed 44 people.
Along the way, learn how the proactive use of prescribed fire can reduce reliance on reactive fire suppression, see a California tribe renew their tradition of cultural fire, and meet stakeholder groups working with scientists and resource managers to build consensus on how to restore and manage the lands.
A preview can be viewed at: wilderthanwildfilm.org.
