Wildfire

When the conditions are right, land managers sometimes allow naturally ignited fires to burn. And new research shows that there can be significant ecological benefits when they do so.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) has formally announced the establishment of the U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS), a development that came the same week that the U.S. Congress declined to fund it.

As wildfires get more intense, there are questions about how effective prescribed fire and other fuel treatments can be. New research suggests that they can still have real impacts.

The tragic Los Angeles fires were a historically destructive disaster, but they also presented a unique opportunity to study the toxic exposures faced by firefighters. New findings point to a heightened risk for serious diseases like lupus.

Wildfires have grown substantially in size in recent decades, but they’re also burning much more intensely, with high severity areas growing much faster than fires overall. New research projects additional significant jumps in the scale of wildfires that kill most trees unless major management measures - like prescribed fire - are carried out.

Over the summer, an executive order from President Trump called for the consolidation of federal wildfire programs "to the maximum degree practicable." The secretaries of Interior and Agriculture recently released their plans responding to that and other demands – and they've garnered praise and criticism.

The federal grants are focused on reducing risk in areas where people live near forests.

The Grizzly Creek Fire was one of many fires Colorado experienced during the 2020 season, and it had huge impacts on the delicate ecosystem of Glenwood Canyon. Five years later, land managers are positive on the regrowth and recovery they're seeing.

Early forecasts suggested that 2025 would have a very active fire season. But so far, things have played out a little differently.

A University of Utah study used data from wildfires in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California to look at how private forests for industrial timber harvest were impacted by severe fire weather, brought about by climate change.