Fire

The USDA Forest Service is charged with caring for 193 million acres of the nation’s forests and grasslands and solving some of the most complex land management challenges. Across the country, forests densely packed with trees are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire as well as insect and disease...

An opaque, autumn haze smothers much of the western United States from the millions of acres burning across forests in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. Fire size and severity are rising in tandem with record heat, low winter snowpack, decreased summer rains, and abundant forest fuels...

In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded and heavily contaminated nearly 40,000 square miles with radioisotopes. The contaminated area became known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine and the Polesie Radioecological Reserve in Belarus. Today, the site remains...

As wildfires, or “bushfires”, burn throughout Australia, the USDA Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior continue to deploy wildfire personnel to assist with fire suppression efforts. The two departments have sent more than 200 firefighters since November of 2019.

Fire seasons have lengthened so much that we now use the term fire year, firefighting costs are breaking new records, and loss of life and property are part of an alarming new pattern. The ability to mitigate these impacts with community collaboration is critically important.

Life on our national grasslands, some of the most distinct and treasured ecosystems in the world, depends on regrowth from buds, rather than seeds. Those endless expanses of grass exist because of plant buds, and at this time of year grasses have finished forming buds beneath the earth’s surface...

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the U.S. Forest Service relies heavily on fixed wing and rotary aircraft to accomplish the agency’s mission. Employees take to the skies for forest inventory surveys, prescribed fire support, firefighting or to get to remote locations. Since 1919, aircraft has been...

The gopher tortoise earned its name for good reason – because it likes to dig and spends much of its time underground. The gopher tortoise, the Southeast’s only land-dwelling tortoise, burrows in the sandy soils below longleaf pine forests where it can escape heat and danger. Its burrows are popular...

In recent months, we have all become familiar with images in the media of wildland firefighters digging lines, air tankers dropping retardant and fire engines dispersing water. You may wonder “how do these firefighters know what it takes to fight fire?” The short answer is: research. Before a...

Very often, the difference between saving your home in a wild fire and losing it to the flames is pretty much determined by what you do to prepare your property. The U.S. Forest Service calls it being Fire Wise. I’ve had personal experience in the importance of clearing a wide perimeter around your...