Fighting every wildfire ensures the big fires are more extreme, and may harm forests’ ability to adapt to climate change
- Written by Mark Kreider, Ph.D. Candidate in Forest and Conservation Science, University of Montana
Extreme fires leave forests struggling to recover in a warming world.
Mark KreiderIn the U.S., wildland firefighters are able to stop about 98% of all wildfires before the fires have burned even 100 acres. That may seem comforting, but decades of quickly suppressing fires has had unintended consequences.
Fires are a natural part of many landscapes...

