"In this hot, dry summer, even the Queets rain forest in Olympic National Park is burning. It’s a rare spectacle, but one that could become more common with climate change."

"PARADISE CREEK, Olympic National Park — Fire crews call them “cat faces,” deep holes that flames have burned into the trunks of the centuries-old Sitka spruce and hemlock growing here in the Queets River valley.

The trees may smolder for days — spouting smoke from their bases before finally toppling to the ground with a thunderous crash that sounds like a bomb has gone off.

'They are falling down regularly,' said Dave Felsen, a firefighter from Klamath Falls, Ore. 'You can hear cracking and you try to move, but it’s so thick in there that there is no escape route if something is coming at you.'"

Hal Bernton reports for the Seattle Times July 5, 2015. [2]