fires

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The Wilderness Act at 50: Better With Age

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On September 4th, 2014
Editor’s note: Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act. To commemorate the anniversary, we asked a small group of Island Press authors to reflect on the influence of this law to date and how its role may or should change as we move into an uncertain future. This is the last piece in the series.
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Why Our Forests Need Fire, Not Salvage Logging

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On December 13th, 2013
For over two decades, I have studied forests from Oregon's amazing coastal rainforests to the fire-adapted forests of the West. In dry forests, there are three issues that reoccur every fire season: (1) forests will burn regardless of what we do; (2) politicians will propose unchecked post-fire "salvage" logging, even in national parks, as a quick fix; and (3) scientists will continue to document the incredible regeneration that takes place after fires and how post-fire logging disrupts forest renewal. Recently, I submitted a letter to Sen.
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Heavy Logging vs Fires

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On October 22nd, 2013
From the Sacramento Bee Viewpoints: Fires can be restorative, unlike heavy logging This year, as in every year, fires are occurring in the forests of the western United States.
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Where Were the Forests in the President’s Speech?

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 1st, 2013
On June 25, President Obama delivered his most significant speech on climate change. “As a president, as a father, and as an American,” he stated, “I am here to say, we need to act. . . .
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Island Press Staff Picks

By Admin, Jason Leppig / On December 12th, 2012
This week’s pick is from Lauren Koshere: “How’s the Park lookin’ these days,” asks a gravelly voice on the other end of the telephone line, “after they let those fires ruin the place?” As a reservations agent for in Yellowstone National Park, I answer hundreds of questions a day. But few guests’ questions refer to the Yellowstone fires of 1988. Fewer still reflect such disapproval about the management of those fires. “The Park is as beautiful as ever—lots of regrowth and stands of young trees,” I say.
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When Will the Fish & Wildlife Service Give a Hoot for Spotted Owls?

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On July 5th, 2012
Perhaps no other species symbolizes the conflict over logging in the Pacific Northwest more than the northern spotted owl. This medium-sized, forest-dwelling raptor has been credited with shutting down the logging industry in the 1990s and with shouldering the responsibility of conservation for hundreds of species that share its old-growth forest habitat.
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The Wildfires in Hawaii Are a Loss for Our World

By Admin / On March 28th, 2011
The wildfire created by the recent eruption of the Kilauea volcano on the Island of Hawaii has already burned some 2,000 acres in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home to 23 species of endangered plants and 6 endangered birds. Because this fire now threatens a relatively pristine native rain forest that is home to Hawaii's famous happyface spiders and honeycreeper songbirds, Park officials are quite rightly doing everything they can to stop it. As a whole, Hawaii is a globally important paradise that is dying on our watch.
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Two fires.

By Stephen Pyne / On August 31st, 2009
Then: Southern California burns, 2008 Even for the literal-minded, it was hard not to lump the conflagrations on Wall Street with those in Southern California. The meltdown of 401(k)s with the street signs at Sylmar. The frantic, ever-escalating press conferences and bailouts of any significant credit institution with the desperate deployment of ever-greater masses of engines and helitankers, all equally ineffective.
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Cultivated Fire

By [node:field_contributor] / On September 4th, 2008
Megafires appear to be breaking out everywhere, from Provence to Greece, Mongolia and the Russian Far East to New South Wales and San Diego.  But hectare for hectare, the most explosive fire scene on Earth belongs to Iberia, specifically Portugal and Galicia.  In recent years most of northern Portugal has burned over.  The 2006 fires not only surrounded Coimbra, the ancient university town, but burned every pocket of parkland within it. Portugal?  This is a long way from the heartland of wildland fire management.  But the distance is not simply one of geography: the wildfires roaring over the

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