Wildfires

A bill — known as the Wildland Firefighter Health and Safety Act — was recently introduced in both chambers of Congress, and enjoys bipartisan support.

Wildfires are burning more land in watersheds that provide water to communities across the West, raising concerns about water quality and infrastructure as fires become larger and more frequent.

Reservoirs across the West are slowly losing space to store water as dirt, sand and other sediment pile up behind dams, according to new, sweeping, nationwide research.

Fire leaders held a demonstration to show what happens when a home is built with wildfire-conscious materials, something more homeowners and builders are considering as wildfires become more intense.

Post-fire specialists are assessing soil damage, debris flows and watershed risks after the Ferris Fire, as parts of the burned landscape begin to recover.

The faster a fire burns, the more severe its ecological impacts. That's one of the findings of a new paper in the journal Science Advances. Climate change only promises to further accelerate those fires, according to its lead author.

From Spokane, Wash. to Pueblo County, Colo., fast-moving fires have again wreaked havoc in neighborhoods this summer. Now, a network of scientists, fire professionals and other experts have joined forces to seek research-based solutions to the problem.

So-called process based restoration (PBR) has a number of ecological benefits. But it can make ecosystems more resilient to wildfires when they come, and better able to recover in their wake.

Giant sequoias only grow naturally in California today. But they once ranged as far east as Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada, before the climate turned drier and pushed them into their current, narrower range.

There were early signs that this fire season could be a big one, especially the record-low snowpack last winter. In Teton County — near the Grand Targhee Resort — that spurred interest in a novel effort: raising money to help hire a local wildfire mitigation coordinator.