Why California is fighting fire with fire
(WorldNews Environment)

Slim pine trunks stacked in a mound loomed over my head, curving around me in a partial circle like a dam built by Brontosaurus-sized beavers. I´d followed a long unmarked dirt road earlier this year to see it: One of 48 wood piles in a 12 square-mile section of the Tahoe National Forest outside the town of Truckee in northern California. You can find similar scenes across the western United States, anywhere work crews are clearing brush and small trees from forests. They’re monuments to a widespread effort to cull tinder for future wildfires. Drought, disease, and insects have left 100 million dead trees browning across California, and in some places, 90 percent of the trees have...