Summary
2318717 (Cobian). In recent years, high-severity wildfires have severely damaged forested mountain watersheds that store carbon, supply western-states’ water, and provide many co-benefits. While periodic low- to medium-severity wildfires are a natural part of western U.S. forests, too much of the area is burning at high severity owing to excessive fuel loads and a warming climate. Therefore, a critical goal of forest management is often the introduction of practices designed to reduce the risk of high severity fires. These practices, known collectively as forest restoration, involve thinning a
