Friday's special presentation focused on the increased wildfire challenge in the wildland/urban interface

Friday morning, the second day of the Backyards & Beyond conference, Lincoln Bramwell, PhD., chief historian from the USDA Forest Service, talked to participants about homeowners and fire on the forest edge. Bramwell started his presentation with an example of a large wildfire in a community on the south coast of Maine, which that year had received only 50% of its normal rainfall. Burning 17,000 acres in and around Arcadia National Park/Mount Desert Isle by the time it was contained, it was known as The Year that Maine Burned. It was 1947. Fast forward to 2015 and Bramwell explained that...