"Congress is spending billions to save communities from Western megafires by thinning large swaths of forests even as scientists say climate change-driven drought and heat are too extreme for it to work. The money would be better spent thinning woods closest to homes and shoring up houses against embers raining down from firestorms, according to academics, former agency officials, and others who study wildfires."

"Oregon Department of Forestry has been inundated with complaints after releasing a map of wildfire risk on every tax lot in the state."

"A week ago, the scenic Northern California hamlet of Klamath River was home to about 200 people and had a community center, post office and a corner grocery store. Now, after a wildfire raged through the forested region near the Oregon state line, four people are dead and the store is among the few buildings not reduced to ashes."

"Hundreds of airstrips have been secretly built on protected lands in Brazil to fuel the illegal mining industry, a Times investigation found, including 61 in this Yanomami Indigenous territory."

"Emergency responders and law enforcement officials in Nebraska’s Scotts Bluff County urged residents to evacuate as they worked to contain a large fire engulfing a state wildlife management area in the western county."

"The House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation Friday boosting the pay of wildfire fighters and taking steps to improve fire resilience in Western forests."

"Toby Kiers took long strides across the spongy forest floor, felt the adrenaline rush in her veins and stopped at the spot she had traveled so far to reach. Into the ground went a hollow metal cylinder. Out came a scoop of soil."

"Scientists say changes in the amounts of wildfire smoke mixing with clouds over the Arctic Ocean may play a key role in determining how fast the Arctic sea ice cover will shrink during the next few decades, and when it will disappear completely in summer."

"Since Friday, the Oak fire has consumed more than 18,000 acres of the sparsely populated mountain community. And by Tuesday morning, the blaze, located near Yosemite National Park, had destroyed 41 structures and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes."

"The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change."