Beetle-Kill Trees and Wildfire

Beetle-Kill Trees and Wildfire

Beetle-kill trees make an easy target in the rush to defend our forests and communities from wildfire. The trees are dead and brown, so they must be a fire hazard, especially in today’s unnaturally dense forests. Therefore, we need to cut the trees and salvage...
Piñon-Juniper Forests

Piñon-Juniper Forests

Piñon-juniper woodlands may not inspire the kind of awe that people experience among the redwoods of California or the old-growth Douglas-fir trees of the Pacific Northwest, but piñon-juniper forests are one of the most extensive ecosystems in western North America...
The Big Blowup and its Lasting Legacy

The Big Blowup and its Lasting Legacy

Following a fire season that started in April and grew worse during a summer of drought conditions, hurricane-force winds battered Idaho, Montana, and Washington on Aug. 20, 1910. The winds breathed new life into small and smoldering fires across the Northern Rockies....
Respecting the Role of Dead Trees in the Forest

Respecting the Role of Dead Trees in the Forest

Dead trees have become a frequent target of the Forest Service in the years since the agency was forced to stop allowing clear-cut logging of old-growth trees. Either labeled as “hazard trees” or subject to “salvage logging,” dead trees have been identified by the...
Four More Years of President Trump

Four More Years of President Trump

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is unprecedented. He’s the first convicted felon to be elected to the presidency after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges stemming from a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election. Manhattan Judge Juan M....