Wood pellets, by design, are highly flammable. However, according to Megan Fiske, who instructs rural workers at a local community college, residents living close to the proposed pellet mill sites were not always aware of the plans. “People who were a hundred feet away from the [proposed] pellet plant had no idea about it,” said Fiske. Both of the proposed mills are in forested areas that have been threatened by wildfires. When asked about the risks that manufacturing wood pellets poses, Patrick Blacklock, executive director of GSNR, told Grist, “We sought to learn from those incidents.