CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new analysis shows that the Pacific Northwest’s mature and old-growth forests are most at risk of severe wildfire in areas that historically burned frequently at lower severity. The study by scientists at Oregon State University and USDA Forest Service Research & Development is important because those forests are culturally, economically and ecologically significant, supporting biodiversity while storing vast amounts of carbon, and they are under increasing threat of stand-replacing wildfire. …the research highlights the impact of fire exclusion by showing that 75% of the forest areas with the biggest risk of severe wildfire are places that used to see widespread low- and mixed-severity fires. The exclusion of fire from Northwest landscapes began with the disruption of Indigenous fire stewardship, the researchers say. Indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1850s, and putting out wildfires became federal policy following the Great Fire of 1910…