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We need to own fire, own smoke — on our terms The logo of Ashland Fire & Rescue. Tuesday Nov 1, 2016 at 12:43 PM Nov 1, 2016 at 12:43 PM By Chris Chambers Ashland Fire & Rescue This week the Oregon Board of Forestry is visiting Ashland in part to see and hear about Ashland’s partnership efforts to manage our forests to prevent large-scale, severe wildfires in and around the community and municipal watershed. The board will be joined by the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission with a similar goal, with special attention to controlled burning, fire’s beneficial role, smoke and meeting air quality standards. During the 2015 summer wildfire season, Southwest Oregon’s air quality was the worst in Oregon, not an uncommon phenomena. Air quality during the summer of 2013 was even worse with smoke lasting for weeks, closing down plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and sending visitors packing. With climate change pointing to a steep increase in wildfires, summer smoke and negative wildfire outcomes are likely to increase. Over centuries, fire-scarred trees recorded wildfire in the Ashland Watershed on the average of every other year. Those “good fires” maintained a self-reinforcing pattern that kept fires generally benign and beneficial to the forest and for the people who lived here and who depended on fire as a tool to meet their needs. Today, we again need to use good fires to meet our needs and the needs of our local forests that are threatened by climate change. Smoke negatively impacts our health and economy, and smoke will come as inevitably as fire. But we do have a choice and there is hope. The choice whether we simply tolerate unmanaged smoke from increasingly devastating summer wildfires or from controlled burns where we choose to reintroduce good fire and the duration and volume of smoke — minus the devastation. By tolerating some smoke, for short periods, we choose the desired and long-term solution to the challenging wildfire/climate change/smoke dilemma we face. By owning fire and owning our smoke on our terms we contribute to a brighter future for our forests, our water, and our community. You can join the discussion online at Facebook.com/AFR.Project. Chris Chambers is Forest Division Chief of Ashland Fire & Rescue. The Alarm Box, a column with local public safety information written by AFR personnel, appears triweekly in the Tidings. Email topic suggestions to [email protected].