Wildfires

Wildfires - Washington State, USA

Gusting winds Tuesday afternoon fanned the flames of two wildfires in rural Benton County. Extra Washington state fire crews headed to the blaze that had blackened nearly 1,000 acres south of Finley. Meanwhile, another fire was burning along McBee Grade south of Interstate 82 near Benton City. The fires started within an hour of each other Tuesday afternoon.

Wildfires and Climate Change Transform Canada

Climate change and fires are transforming some of Canada's boreal forests into savannahs.

Experts point out that fires are a crucial and natural aspect of a forest's life cycle; they have allowed Canada's boreal forest to flourish over millennia. But there is also evidence that fires are becoming larger and more intense, changing what grows back after the flames go out.

Where the first fire burned a very large, mature pine stand and it was regrowing back as pine with a little bit of aspen mixed in. Then a second fire killed all those seedlings and suddenly it's basically a grassland with a few scattered aspen trees.

Where black spruce dominated most sites before a fire, they tended to lose dominance in its aftermath. In more extreme cases, areas filled with black spruce failed to regenerate at all.