Wildfires in the Western U.S. continue to blaze, with much of the activity centered in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
In Oregon and Washington, 28 large fires are burning across 1.5 million acres. But the Bureau of Land Management noted that growth has slowed for a number of the major fires. The large Beachie Creek Fire east of Salem, Ore., had recorded no new growth in the previous day.
Three things can be true at once.
1) Needs to be more controlled burns
2) Needs to have less development fragmenting forests
3) Climate change is making things worse.
After a quick hike off a steep dirt road, forest ecologist Marin Chambers stands surrounded by grasses, shrubs and blackened bare trees. This is part of where the Hayman fire — until last month, Colorado's largest in recorded history — burned northwest of Colorado Springs back in 2002. The ground is dry, crunching underfoot.
"What we're seeing is a very large high-severity burn patch, where the vast majority of the trees have died," says Chambers, with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University.
These 18-square miles burned hot and fast in a single day, driven by how dense the forest was because of past fire suppression, high winds and extreme drought. Now, nearly two decades later, something you'd normally see after a wildfire is missing: new trees.