PORTLAND, ORE. Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. This week, the nation s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved more slowly and did less damage to the overall forest.
An Olympics like no other, Tokyo perseveres to host Games
TOKYO (AP) â It s an Olympics like no other â and the Tokyo Games are surely that â but this is an event that has persevered through wars, boycotts and now a pandemic over its 125-year modern history.
The Tokyo Olympics have already broken new ground because of the 12-month delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, pushing it into an odd-numbered year for the first time. But with no fans permitted in Japan, foreign or local, it has the distinction of being the first Games without spectators.
âWeâre in uncharted territory, said Steve Wilson, the former president of the Olympic Journalists Association who covered the Olympic movement for The Associated Press for nearly three decades until 2017.
“Generally speaking, what firefighters were reporting on the ground is that when the fire came into those areas that had been thinned . it had significantly less impact.”
The reports were bittersweet for researchers, who still saw nearly 20 square miles of the preserve burn, but the findings add to a growing body of research about how to make wildfires less explosive by thinning undergrowth and allowing forests to burn periodically as they naturally would do instead of snuffing out every flame.
The Bootleg Fire, now 606 square miles (1,569 square kilometers) in size, has ravaged southern Oregon and is the fourth-largest fire in the state s modern history. It s been expanding by up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox.
An Olympics like no other, Tokyo perseveres to host Games
TOKYO (AP) â It s an Olympics like no other â and the Tokyo Games are surely that â but this is an event that has persevered through wars, boycotts and now a pandemic over its 125-year modern history.
The Tokyo Olympics have already broken new ground because of the 12-month delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, pushing it into an odd-numbered year for the first time. But with no fans permitted in Japan, foreign or local, it has the distinction of being the first Games without spectators.
âWeâre in uncharted territory, said Steve Wilson, the former president of the Olympic Journalists Association who covered the Olympic movement for The Associated Press for nearly three decades until 2017.
AP News in Brief at 12:03 a.m. EDT
by The Associated Press
Last Updated Jul 21, 2021 at 12:13 am EDT
An Olympics like no other, Tokyo perseveres to host Games
TOKYO (AP) It’s an Olympics like no other and the Tokyo Games are surely that but this is an event that has persevered through wars, boycotts and now a pandemic over its 125-year modern history.
The Tokyo Olympics have already broken new ground because of the 12-month delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, pushing it into an odd-numbered year for the first time. But with no fans permitted in Japan, foreign or local, it has the distinction of being the first Games without spectators.