Get a rare peek into what it’s like at the fireline.
Wildfire
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Fire scientists fight over what Western forests should look like
Mark Williams and Bill Baker stand amid ponderosa pines in the mountains west of Fort Collins, Colo., holding a copy of a 19th century land survey. They’re looking for a small pile of rocks with three notches on the east side, indicating that a General Land Office surveyor stopped here to describe the forest. Surveyors […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Smokey Bear: From cute to buff, and in between
The icon’s many images changed over the years alongside the Forest Service’s changing attitudes toward wildfire.
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Burning issues
Name Tom BonnicksenAge 67Occupation Retired forestry scientistSpent childhood Outdoors sliding down the Indiana Dunes, canoeing the upper Wisconsin River, living at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains.On how he gathers data “I walk through the woods. I know every inch of these places I study. I’m on the ground all the time. And if I’m […]