Forests

"BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Crews facing adverse weather forecasts rushed to bolster protective lines around blazes that have scorched tens of thousands of acres in the Northern Rockies, while firefighters in Oregon worked to corral a range fire that forced a kids' science camp to evacuate.

Fire conditions rose to critical Thursday as steady winds fanned several blazes and scattered storms threatened to spark new ones across Montana, north central Idaho and northwest Wyoming.

"The legacy of George Washington's centuries-old logging venture in the Great Dismal Swamp is contributing to the possible demise of a valuable ecosystem as a barely contained fire burns on the Virginia-North Carolina border, experts say."

"Only a year ago Russia was overwhelmed by an exceptional heat wave, triggering hundreds of fires that destroyed thousands of hectares of woodland. Burning peat bogs around Moscow stifled the city in a thick cloud of bitter smoke."

"By year’s end, the Obama administration will announce a new plan to manage the nation’s 155 national forests for the next 15 to 20 years."

"With hundreds of fires scorching northern Ontario, and Alberta and Northwest Territories battling bigger blazes than usual, this is potentially shaping up as one of the nation’s most destructive wildfire years."

"The Obama administration [Tuesday] roundly denounced a proposal by Republican lawmakers that would release several million acres of protected public lands into local management plans, potentially opening them to timber harvests, oil and gas development, motorized recreation and other uses."

"The devastation that bark beetles and fungus have wreaked on hundreds of thousands of acres of whitebark pine trees in the northern Rockies has been tracked and chronicled for 30 years. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service has weighed in with a finding that climate change threatens the long-term survival of the species."

"Federal environmental regulators are questioning the rationale of a proposed 39-mile natural gas pipeline that opponents say would damage 600 acres of pristine forests and streams in northern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains region."

"Marauding insects have become a leading threat to the nation’s forests over the past decade, a problem made worse by drought and a warming climate, a federal report says."