Taking the Wild Out of Wildfire
Larry Joe Doherty is a public advocate of prescribed burning in Texas. Photo by Mose Buchele/KUT News and StateImpact TexasAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The expression “fight fire with fire” isn’t often taken literally. But in the aftermath of last year’s devastating wildfires, a growing chorus of landowners and safety officials are proposing just that. For StateImpact Texas, KUT’s Mose Buchele reports on “prescribed burns” and whether more of Texas should be burning.
Imagine you’re in a house in the country. There’s a frantic knock at your door, you open it to find a group dressed in fireproof gear.
“We want access to your land,” they say. “A wildfire’s going to sweep through here and destroy everything!”
But you don’t smell any smoke, you don’t see any fire.
“You don’t understand,” they say. “It won’t be here for another few years, but we need to fight it now!”
To you, the scenario might sound pretty far out, but not to Larry Joe Doherty. Lately, he’s become a public advocate of prescribed burning in Texas as the president of the Prescribed Burn Alliance of Texas.
“You wait around for an emergency and it’s too late,” Doherty says. “Our motto is: We take the wild out of wildfire.”
Read the rest of the story on the StateImpact Texas website.
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