'California is America fast-forward,' writes one scholar. Does that mean that the dystopian infernos that have consumed parts of the state are simply a picture of what awaits the rest of America?
A fire rages through wetlands close to Cape Town in February 2017.
EPA/Nic Bothma
Rebuilding informal settlements after a disaster must be done through learning from those who live in the settlements.
A burnt out property near Miena, Tasmania. The central Tasmanian house was fitted with roof sprinklers and surrounded by cleared land but succumbed to flying embers from bushfires.
AAP Image/Tasmania Fire Service
If you're preparing to defend your home from fire, be aware of the vulnerable parts of your house.
2016’s warm winter meant not enough snow for the start of the Iditarod sled dog race in Anchorage, so it was brought by train from 360 miles north.
AP/Rachel D'Oro
For everyone from traditional hunters to the military, the National Park Service to the oil industry, climate change is the new reality in Alaska. Government, residents and businesses are all trying to adapt.
In South Africa, untamed fires are on the rise in informal settlements and low-income neighbourhoods.
Alpheus Mashigo/fireservices.gov.za
Paraffin stoves are used all over South Africa in millions of households and are the riskiest.
Wildland firefighters, like this crew heading into New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, in 2012, are equipped and operate differently from urban firefighters.
USFS Gila National Forest
A historian of wildfires explains the difference between urban and rural fire cultures, and what it means for protecting communities in fire-prone rural areas.
New research shows that fire follows fire in the Australian Alps, and old-growth forests are less flammable.
The Victorian mountain ash forest has been severely affected by fires and logging. To determine the actual health of the forest, we need to look at the quality, not just the quantity of what remains.
Graeme/flickr
In the aftermath of fires or logging, conservation needs to focus on recovering the health of the remaining vegetation, not just the size of the forest or woodland.
This fire season has been particularly damaging to urban areas.
AP Photo/Reed Saxon
Max Moritz, University of California, Santa Barbara
With wildfires continuing to rage across southern California, a fire researcher says lowering fire risk means reconsidering where and how we build our communities.
A wildfire burns behind a winery in Santa Rosa, California.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
As firefighters contain the fires that have been raging since Oct. 8, California's wine industry is assessing the damage and hoping the tourists who fled the ash-filled air return.
The complete ban on burning peatlands, while effective in reducing forest and land fires, may in the long run harm the local agriculture industry.
Reuters/Beawiharta
Dede Rohadi, Centre for International Forestry Research
Zero-burning policy could hurt small-holder farmers. The ban on the use of fire for land clearing has raised the costs to prepare their land for planting and to keep it pest-free.
Avoiding fires in Indonesia’s peatlands should be a common goal of everyone involved.
Antara Foto/Jessica Helena Wuysang/ via REUTERS
Indonesian peatlands are important to many people: farmers, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and conservationists. But preserving this value for everyone will mean listening to everyone's concerns.
Scientists work hard to understand fire activity and how it relates to vegetation communities, topography and climate change.
Shutterstock
European invasion completely disrupted the way aboriginal Australians managed fire. Learning from Australia's first people could help us fight fires in the future.
Indigenous Australians continue to manage fire in a way that reduces the risk to property and people.
AAP Image/Peter Eve