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Boise Forest Fire
Photograph by Mark Thiessen
High winds and hot temperatures fanned a 1996 wildfire in the foothills around Boise, Idaho, into an inferno that burned for seven days. When it was finally extinguished, the outbreak—dubbed the Eighth Street Fire—had scorched some 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) and stripped bare two of the region's major watersheds.
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Mexico Fire
Photograph by Bruce Dale
Fire is a natural part of a forest's life. In fact, the cones of some pine species won't release seeds unless they are exposed to intense heat. But small fires can quickly turn into runaway infernos—like this 1990 blaze in Chihuahua, Mexico—when conditions such as drought, dry air, high winds, and the buildup of forest debris conspire to stoke the flames.
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Idaho Fire
Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Fire can have different effects in different kinds of forests. Some species, like the lodgepole pine, use the extreme heat of large fires to release their seeds. Other species, like the ponderosa pines seen burning in this aerial shot of an Idaho fire, need frequent but more mild, low-level fires to thrive. They may not grow back after an intense blaze like this.
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Desolation Peak
Photograph by David Pluth
Writer/poet Jack Kerouac once spent a summer as a National Park Service fire scout in this one-room cabin atop Desolation Peak in Washington's North Cascades National Park. For decades, a policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, and small trees—to build up on public lands. The Park Service now promotes "using fire as a land management tool," so long as human life isn't threatened.
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Russian Smokejumper
Photograph by Mark Thiessen
A member of the Avialesookhrana, Russia's aerial firefighting organization, leaps toward Siberia's boreal forest from an An-2 biplane. "The idea of actually parachuting into fires was a Soviet invention," says American wildfire historian Stephen Pyne. "In the 1930s these guys would climb out onto the wing of a plane, jump off, land in the nearest village, and rally the villagers to go fight the fire."
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Canada Wildfire
Photograph by Todd Gipstein
A towering smoke cloud rises from a forest fire near Jasper, Alberta, Canada. Since the 1930s, fire suppression in Jasper National Park has created an unnaturally old forest and increased the risk of large, catastrophic outbreaks. Recent efforts by Parks Canada to rectify the situation have focused on low-impact logging and thinning of vegetation and debris that clog the forest floor.
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Russian Firefighter
Photograph by Mark Thiessen
A Russian firefighter rappels into the Siberian forest from an Mi-8 helicopter. Russia's aerial firefighting organization, the Avialesookhrana, is the largest of its kind in the world. Some 4,000 firefighters patrol 11 time zones in Soviet-era helicopters and biplanes, dousing the country's 20,000 to 35,000 wildfires every year.
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Colorado Fire Damage
Photograph by Jim Richardson
All that remains of a home leveled by a forest fire that swept through Colorado's Front Range is the foundation, chimney, and swimming pool. More and more people are building homes near natural vegetation and in wildlands, exposing themselves to the devastation that natural fire cycles can cause.
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Glacier National Park
Photograph by Michael Melford
Large wildfires, like the 2006 Red Eagle Fire that devastated this tract of Montana's Glacier National Park, can cause deeper problems. When forests are stripped bare, rain and meltwater run through unimpeded, causing potentially dangerous and destructive flood conditions.
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