Amid record-breaking temperatures and destructive fires, U.K. researchers are developing a national wildfire danger rating system based on a Canadian system for determining forest fire risk. Canadian scientists collaborating with them hope to glean valuable information about how to update the decades-old system.
Worsening wildfires in recent years have led officials to embrace planned fires to thin forests before disaster strikes. But the warming world is making it tougher to do safely.
Advocates say controlled burns are a critical solution to a range of problems, from biodiversity loss to wildfire risk to climate change. But they must overcome government regulations and a long-held view of fire as unnatural and threatening.
For the better part of a century, it was thought that fires should be put out. In recent decades, fires have been set intentionally, including in the New River Gorge.
