Increasing periods of drought and high temperatures due to climate change are causing more wildfires across the country. So how can we harness fire's power of healing and renewal for our property, natural landscapes and forests?
In Land on Fire: The New Reality of Wildfire in the West
As Ferguson writes in the prologue to the book, wildfire can be "a powerful agent of healing, a mighty wand that wipes the land free of disease and insects and fallen timber to create a stage for healthy, altogether magnificent new flushes of life." But the author warns that climate change is making fire "an ever more dangerous force" ... and that we must learn "how to live intelligently, even gracefully, in what has clearly become a land of flames."
Ferguson takes us through the facts on fires: how they start, how they're fought, what happens in their wake. There's also a very useful chapter for homeowners who live in fire-prone landscapes on reducing the risk of fire on your property.
In the final chapter, "Future Fire," Ferguson notes that we need to think more seriously about rising temperatures, drought, and to pay more attention to sustainable ways of living. But he says that we simply have to accept the possibility of more frequent wildfires that will change the way that we and thousands of other species experience life on Earth.
A terrific book that all designers -- but particularly those who live in the West -- should study as we re-imagine our relationship with forests and western landscapes.
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