Wildfire and Climate Change
The obvious, necessary solution to climate change is reducing human carbon emissions. Until that happens, wildfire is both a symptom and a cause of climate change: every year, wildfires release 8 billion tons of carbon globally. In 2021, 18% of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions were generated by wildfire.
We need tools to adapt to a changing climate, and the Rain System is one in a suite of tools that includes controlled burns, innovative policies, and ongoing forest management. We believe uncontrolled wildfires destroying communities, livelihoods and lives are unnecessary to meet our climate objectives.
Fire and Ecology
We know in many ecologies that natural, small or infrequent wildfires can be a good thing. Fire clears the forest floor of debris, giving larger trees space by clearing out smaller ones and over the long run, healthy forests can store more carbon than they release. But years of fire suppression combined with the effects of climate change have combined to double the area of land burned each year by wildfires over natural levels in the Western US alone. Prescribed burns are an important part of a wider fire strategy, and there is much to be learned from cultural land stewardship by first peoples.
Rain’s technology is meant to prevent the worst wildfires from destroying lives and communities, while providing fire agencies with tools to conduct prescribed burns throughout the year.