‘Unprecedented but unsurprising’: Climate change & lack of prevention behind wildfires, extreme heat

Eve Irvine is pleased to welcome Alexander Held, Senior Expert of the Resilience Programme for Integrated Fire Management. He reframes Europe’s wildfire crisis by arguing that the flames themselves are not the central problem but rather ecological and governance failures. Held asserts that fires are not unforeseeable natural disasters, there have been decades of scientific warnings about the devastating effects of climate change. He ultimately presents the wildfire crisis not only as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink our relationship with forests and landscapes.