My name is John Pickett and I currently work for two nonprofits in the Lake Tahoe Basin. I am the California Coordinator for the Nevada Fire Safe Council where I am charged with making communities safe during wildland fire events. I also started The Sugar Pine Foundation and our goal is to restore white pines in the Lake Tahoe Basin. White pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) is killing sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), western white pine (Pinus monticola) and whitebark pines (Pinus albicalus) so we are working on mitigating the damage from that fungus. More details on that project can be found at [1]
I am definitely interested in forestry and fire in Sierra Nevada Mixed Conifer forests. My philosophy is not novel, let the forests burn and the homes survive, and I think we can do that. Homes don't burn if homes don't ignite, so my area of interest is actually quite small. We are implementing a two pronged approach in the Tahoe Basin: first we treat homes and their immediate surroundings so that flames do not directly impinge on the home and so that firebrands do not penetrate the home and cause ignition. Simple stuff actually. Secondly we are creating shaded fuel breaks adjacent to communities so that crown fires do not reach the communities. Shaded fuel breaks will not extinguish a fire, it is still necessary to treat the homes regardless of what the forest looks like.
Forest health is important, but the forests will thin themselves, so I am not worried about that. I am more concerned with making communities fire safe so we can abandon our insane fire suppression policies.