By David Calkin, Kimiko Barrett, Jack Cohen, Mark Finney, Stephen Pyne, and Stephen Quarles for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection for the Pulitzer Center-Public News Service Collaboration. Consider several of the most devastating fire disasters of the last century. In August 2023, the wildfire-initiated urban conflagration of Lahaina, Hawaii, damaged or destroyed more than 2,200 structures and killed 98 people. .
The Marshall Fire that devastated Boulder County in December 2021 was caused by two fires that later became one, according to a newly-released investigation into the fire's origin.
The Marshall Fire exposed the need to reduce wildfire risk on the grasslands of Boulder County. But there’s a problem: Even the best fire-prevention techniques on the plains don’t work as well as they do in the mountains.