As California continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, the governmental and institutional response has been to thin forests and “grind up vegetation” to fight fires. Naomi Pitcairn points to a movement by plant community and wildfire experts led by the Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute to focus on protecting vulnerable communities rather than trying to control nature, which now faces extreme heatwaves and droughts from an unpredictable greenhouse-gas-warmed climate.
