OOS 17-6 - When the Black Swan shows up: the unprecedented but also totally precedented 2020 Labor Day fire event in the West Cascades

The 2020 fire season on the US west coast was a nationally significant event, and notable in burning large swaths of temperate rainforest on the west side of the Cascade Range where fires are infrequent but can be large and severe. Around Labor Day 2020, almost as much ‘westside’ forests burned in two weeks – mostly in 48 hours – as in the previous five decades. With such limited societal experience with fire in these forests, an event of this magnitude quickly became a “Rorschach test” of human beliefs and attitudes toward wildfire, climate change, and forest management. Here, we explore the context and drivers of the 2020 Labor Day fires, with an eye toward better understanding the nature of extreme or rare (yet known-to-occur) events, the roles of weather and past forest management in climate-driven fire regimes, and the ecological outcomes of these landscape-shaping fires. While the Labor Day fires were unprecedented for society, they actually bore striking (almost eerie) similarities with historical events from past centuries – in timing, size, speed, severity, and even specific locations. The fires validated many expectations regarding the roles (or non-roles) of weather and forest management, but also carried some twists and surprises, with each of these informing what management approaches are (and are not) relevant to adapting to such events presently and in the future.