wildfire

The Western U.S. is seeing an increasing number of wildfires that spread quickly and cause more destruction than a typical wildfire. And experts say so-called "fast fires” – like the 2021 Marshall Fire that burned around a thousand homes in Boulder county – are likely to increase in the coming years. A wildfire expert from CU Boulder explains what makes fast fires so dangerous, and how communities might respond differently to them.

It’s an unusual sight west of Fort Collins, in areas scarred by the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome wildfires: Several artificial beaver dams are helping to restore wetlands damaged by the blazes. We talk to a Colorado State University researcher about how – and why – the manmade beaver dams help to heal that ecosystem.

Xcel Energy announced a second wave of power outages that affected thousands of customers, and officials closed highways around Boulder.

Colorado, like the rest of the country, is experiencing more, and worse, climate disasters, wreaking havoc on people’s homes and their homeowner’s insurance rates.

This week a trial was scheduled to begin to determine if Xcel Energy was at fault for igniting the Marshal Fire. But Wednesday, the energy company agreed to terms to settle the more than 4,000 homeowners, businesses and insurers. The Colorado Sun's Michael Booth discusses the settlement with KUNC's Desmond O'Boyle.

The federal government currently spends significantly more on suppressing fires than preventing them.

Michael Conway highlights the challenges of passing legislation aimed at improving homeowners' insurance access.

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. Colonization and fire exclusion largely put an end to those practices, though the tradition endured. Now, California tribes have opened the door to a new era of cultural burning - a potential model for the rest of the West.

Researchers say that during a wildfire, aspen groves in Colorado’s forests help slow the progress of the blaze. So should more mountain communities plant aspen groves on the outskirts of town?

A new bill co-sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper is designed to speed up wildfire prevention efforts across the country. But a few measures in the bill have some environmental groups concerned.