Jefferson County Historical Society’s First Friday Speaker Series continues into December, with University of Washington professor Ernesto Alvarado presenting on potential causes linked to the growing number of large and severe wildfires in the Northwest.

Wildfires are part of most ecosystems in the western United States and large wildfires have occurred for millennia.

However, current wildfires seem different from those occurring historically.

Some of the concepts that Alvarado will cover are: fire behavior and fire regime that help people understand ecological and environmental effects of fire; current fire issues like restoration and national fire policies; relation of wildfires to climate; and Native American traditional burning.

The event is set for 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2 with up to 35 in-person tickets at the Northwest Maritime Center as well as livestream tickets. The suggested donation is $10 and people can register via SimpleTix at simpletix.com/e/december-first-friday-speaker-series-progr-tickets-119600.

Alvarado is a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. He teaches wildland fire management, fire ecology, role of disturbances on forest dynamics, and traditional ecological knowledge.

His lab studies a wide variety of wildland fire topics, including fire behavior, biomass assessment, combustion modeling, fire ecology, fire management, prescribed fire, fire-climate change interactions, landscape ecology, smoke emissions and health, and traditional fire use by indigenous communities.

The speaker series’ program sponsor is the Northwest Maritime Center.