Forest and Friends - September 24, 2026
As we approach the end of September, and the start of fall in the Pacific Northwest, we can start to feel the change in the air (and notice that it is getting darker before bed). This month we’re going to hold court in Seattle, at Rhein Haus from 5pm to 7:30 on September 24th. Feel free to join us for dinner and a pint as we talk about climate!
In the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to talk with stakeholders in Nevada and California about fire risk and mitigation options in their forests and wildland urban interfaces. While these specific areas avoided destructive fires this year their neighbors an hour away in Reno weren’t so lucky. These forests remain primed for their own destructive fires in the future.
Across two events we met with 40 people representing about 15 organizations from the USFS to utilities, stewardship organizations to homeowners and neighbors. These forest and community stakeholders are all faced with time pressures (their forests are up against an overdue disturbance interval and every day we delay is a day extreme fire might volunteer to take on the work) and the support tools we’ve built are meant to support faster action in preparation, administration, and execution of fuels management projects. Our machine-based sensing solution measures and reports stand characteristics while work is being performed, recording the initial, final, and all changes in state for the project – providing valuable data and context for describing the work that was actually done to neighbors and stakeholders. Everyone is a little skeptical at first about a real-time system, what with years of hand-held, backpack, and drone inventory offerings that never seem to generate timely and actionable insight, but once they see it perform in their own forest the conversation turns towards how to improve their prescriptions and better guide the work towards the resilient outcomes the desire for their forests. Invigorating interactions to round out the summer, but the work remains the work and we all need to start putting on the acres before the weather closes down the work season.
Feel free to join us for dinner and a pint as we talk about climate! We’ll be geeking out, enjoying the taplist, menu, and friendship while we talk forests, startups, GIS, policy, etc. I’ll be wearing a hardhat and cruising vest – feel free to walk right up and join our table.
Welcome to the end of September! Forest and Friends is on, September 24th, from 5pm-7:30 at Rhein Haus in Seattle WA. Come talk forestry, climate, startups, smoke, and fire - it is especially relevant as this fire season churns along. Short notice, but hope to see some new folks!