Towering woodlands in the West are being permanently replaced by tracts of spiky shrubs. Conditions “just aren’t normal anymore,” one researcher said.
U.S. officials say the ever-growing population of wild horses that roam federal lands in Colorado is depleting natural resources. But some activists say efforts to remove the horses are inhumane.
‘tens of millions of forested acres off-limits’
Prospectors are eyeing mineral deposits within the former boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah.
Under French rules, homeowners must clear vegetation within roughly 50 yards of their houses. In the forests affected by France’s worst fire in decades, that didn’t happen.
Wildfires in central and eastern Oregon are prompting evacuations and forcing ranchers to scramble to move cattle and find feed as public range land burns. More than a million acres have burned so far. Most fires have little or no containment.
A warming planet and a shift away from farming have set the stage for larger fires on the continent. “We must learn to coexist with them,” one report said.
No structures, residences or public spaces were immediately threatened by the fires.
The deaths of three firefighters in Colorado are casting a spotlight on the Trump administration’s creation of a new federal fire agency and its revival of a previously discredited policy to stomp out all wildfires quickly.