Q: So you’re not saying people shouldn’t be living on this terrain?

A: No. We live in a free country. That’s one of the great things of this nation -– you can live anywhere you want as long as you have a permit. You can’t stop people. We’ve got 37 million people and probably 5 million illegals. They’ve got to live somewhere.

Q: The terrain that is actually burning, is it state land, private land?

A: It’s a combination. We’ve got it in national forests, state forests, Bureau of Land Management lands --- it’s all over. This is that funky urban-wildland interface. It’s a cocktail of everybody’s stuff. But we’ve got to do something. Look, for goodness' sakes, you wouldn’t want to be Schwarzenegger’s folks because they are going to be on the hot seat. We’ve already lost at least $1 billion in damage to property and businesses. We look for heads to roll here.

Q: Has the government -- federal or state -- changed their fire-suppression policies?

A: Sure they have. The landmark turning point was 1988 when Yellowstone caught on fire and the policy came down "Let it burn" and it was cataclysmic. But I’ll tell you, if you want to bring a big-old smile to your face, if you ever get a chance to go to Yellowstone now, it’s just so gorgeous in its restoration. In my latest book, "Wild Weather," we talk about this; fire has been here on Earth in these forests for at least 350 million years. So it’s just people. It’s a people-management thing.

Q: So you’re not an anti-people person?

A: Nooooo. I’m a problem solver, like you. And a communicator. The Old Economy is us-versus-them – like a win-lose. We’ve got to find a new economy where businesses win, communities win and the environment wins.

Q: What happens now to this land that has been burned so fiercely?

A: The biggest concern, of course, is mudslides. We are coming into a – touch wood – wetter period, a rainy period. Hillside "slumping" is a real problem. The second thing we are concerned with is some of these fires are burning with such intensity and ferocity that forests may not come back. In other words, Forest Ecology 101: Arguably the most important thing in the forest – this is going to sound bizarre – is the soil. If you hammer the soil -- if you beat up your soil, if you burn it so hard that it chars the soil – and then it rains? The soil repels the water and doesn’t absorb it. When that happens under these burned conditions, the only thing we can do is get prison people and others to get in there and rip the soil, open it up, so moisture can get in. That’s a very serious problem. We’ve seen this throughout the West, the Southwest in particular, over the last 14 years. With fire suppression, global warming and the ferocity of the fire, it’s scarring the soil.

Q: Are these fires the beginning of a run of more of these kinds of unstoppable fires?

A: Yeah. Here is a stat that will blow your mind: Since ’87, the number of fires has quadrupled and the size of the fires has increased sixfold. Our fire-keeping records date to 1960. Last year we had the most amount of wildland forest ever burned, a hair under 10 million acres. This year we are in second place. I don’t know how the chips will fall. The calendrical year is not over. We’re either going to be a very close second or we’re going to eclipse it. We’ve just seen filthy fire season after fire season. You know, the West is huge. We’ve got a lot more acres to go. We’re very worried. I was in Idaho this summer and there were two epic fires there that both burned well over 300,000 acres each. We’re coming into these mega-fires. It’s a concern. Another concern you may wish to enter into the scenario in a warmer world is seeing less snowfall on the mountain ranges throughout western North America. It’s way down. It’s way down in the Pacific Cascades. You know, 90 percent of our water in Southern California, that drives the eighth mightiest economy on planet Earth, comes from the Sierra Nevadas. We’re finger-crossed that we’re not lambasted all at once, but the forecasts and models are for reduced snowfall. So we’ve got to become water-smart, we’ve got to become fire-smart in how we manage it.