This week is Wildfire Awareness Week, as fire season starts to heat up across California. We’ll talk with Jim Branham from Sierra Nevada Conservancy and Craig Thomas from Sierra Forest Legacy about what could be different about this fire season, and whether the additional rains and snow might help limit mega fires in 2016.

They’ll also talk about the big picture of what needs to happen in California’s forests to break the cycle of catastrophic mega fires.

Interview Highlights:

“May and a fire that size in Alberta is a game-changing event and hopefully those people will be safe. But that’s just unheard of, that scale of fire this early in the year," Craig Thomas told Beth Ruyak.

Jim Branham spoke about changing the way we communicate about fighting wildfires especially in a wet period.

“Because one of the things we need to do is we need to help the public understand that the old phrase ‘fight fire with fire’ is very appropo. We can use fire and in the right circumstances and in controlled circumstance to help restore our forest.”