This issue’s cover story takes us into towering plumes of smoke to follow the work of researchers. New studies are uncovering how intense wildfires create their own weather and move across the land — knowledge that could save lives. It’s a reminder of stake: If President Donald Trump’s budget cuts hobble that research, it will harm, not strengthen, the West’s security. Plus, the growing voice of sportsmen, communities protecting immigrants, and a public-lands love affair.
Inside the firestorm
New technology allows scientists to see the forces behind the flames.
Kill bill; What’s sprouting from Hell’s backbone?; Mojave NIMBY
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Spring’s skipped issue, and corrections
Raven wordplay: Corvus, Corvax and Corax.
The story of Hig and Big Guy
Regarding Anna V. Smith’s recent story about Oregon’s Valley of the Giants (“Growing pains,” HCN, 3/6/17), long, long ago my boss, Guy Higginson, supervised a group of BLM foresters. I was one of them. The Bureau of Land Management back in the 1970s was a timber-producing machine, and we O&C foresters pulled the levers. In…
Why coal has declined
In “Overdosed” in the Feb. 20 issue, the author writes, “Federal regulations and the low cost of natural gas have combined to create the worst economic climate for coal in decades.” While this sentence is true, it is also misleading. The real economic issue for Craig is not just the decline in coal demand, but…
You can’t take politics out of the West
Our editor-in-chief responds to recent criticism.
Zinke’s Interior takes shape; Big Rec’s big move; solar shift
HCN.org news in brief.
A roadmap for nomadic love
One couple’s story of a long-distance relationship across the landscape.
At home with the ‘unsettlers’
A new book features characters who have gone far beyond what most of us consider ‘good enough.’
Falconry birds aren’t pets
As a 55-year-old lifelong raptor enthusiast with 12 years of professional raptor work under my belt, I enjoyed seeing a ferruginous hawk on the cover (“Now you see her,” HCN, 3/6/17). As a licensed falconer of over 30 years, though, I take exception to the author’s statement that “ferruginous hawks, however, are not popular pets…
What should a community do to protect its immigrants?
A conservative county in Colorado grapples over a new political reality for its refugee and immigrant residents.
Sportsmen pull public-lands politics to the center
As threats intensify, sportsmen emerge as a persuasive voice.
Latest: At Hanford, allegations of worker intimidation
The Superfund site has been in clean-up since 1989.
Latest: Gray wolves delisted in Wyoming
The state will take over management of the species.
The battle over Montana’s vacant House seat
A banjo-playing Democrat and a tech-industry Republican are fighting to fill Ryan Zinke’s spot.
Have we underestimated the West’s super-floods?
Scientists warn that enormous floods may be more likely than we thought — and the Oroville Dam and others weren’t built to withstand them.