Paul Hessburg
As an expert on forest landscapes, Paul Hessburg aims to understand why wildfires are getting bigger and hotter, and how they got that way. Hessburg has spent more than 3 decades researching changes that have taken place in the fire-prone western landscapes, what caused them, and how they differ from place to place. Along with a revved up climate, these changes have created conditions ripe for the rise of what he and others call megafires. How do our forest management techniques affect the legacy we leave our children? Hessburg’s recent book, Making Transparent Environmental Management Decisions, offers compelling new insights into using modern-day decision support systems to plan for forest restoration.