PUBLIUS SPECIAL GUEST: Lawrence McQuillan, is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute. He is author of California Dreaming: Lessons on How to Resolve America's Public Pension Crisis.
McQuillan co-authored "California Wildfires: Key Recommendations to Prevent Future Disasters" and authored "California Burning."
"The conventional wisdom on forest management by state and federal agencies over the past 100 years has been to rapidly suppress all wildfires. Most environmental organizations have also supported this policy by pressuring politicians and pursuing litigation. Unfortunately, this approach has resulted in overgrown, overcrowded, sick, dead, and dying forests, which are tinderboxes waiting to explode.
A better approach would be to (1) allow natural wildfires to burn in areas that do not threaten people or structures, and (2) engage in widespread and consistent prevention activities throughout the year that could include controlled burns, but also other things such as mechanical thinning, creating defensible spaces, and deploying technologies for early fire detection and prevention. The more that local communities and private property owners are given authority to pursue this alternative approach, the faster the work will get done with the urgency that is required. Either we must thin the forests, or Mother Nature will do it for us in uncontrolled megafires."
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Lawrence McQuillan, is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute. He is author of California Dreaming: Lessons on How to Resolve America's Public Pension Crisis.