Pines in Peril
Grand Teton’s lodgepole forests are exquisitely adapted to wildfire — but can they survive a changing climate? In 1988, a fire ecologist named Monica Turner clambered into a helicopter and soared over Yellowstone National Park’s still-smoldering forests. One fire after another had torched the park that infamous summer, ultimately burning some 800,000 acres, and Turner expected devastation. Instead she beheld a green-and-black quilt, burned forests and living ones mingled across the landscape. A year later, lodgepole pine seedlings carpeted the ground so densely that, she said, “you ...
Source: npca.org