United States: Yes, something can be done about wildfires

BEND, Ore. — On an autumn weekday here in Deschutes County, Oregon, a chain-saw roar ripped through a pine-scented neighborhood. Tree specialists were removing flammable lodgepole pines in Sunriver, a 4,000-home resort community. With summer crowds gone, the Sunriver Owners Association was reducing wildfire risk.

This is a year when huge wildfires, characterized by exceptionally strong winds, continue to ravage Ventura County and other parts of Southern California, after an October in which blazes in Santa Rosa destroyed thousands of homes. But experts believe that a cohesive strategy involving public education, community outreach, landscape restoration and robust emergency response could at least begin to mitigate the potential for such devastation. And that is what is at work here, hundreds of miles to the north of the California fires.

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