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After a series of record-breaking forest megafires in the western U.S., Penn State geographers, like Jamie Peeler, worked to develop guidelines to help forest managers determine where to replant trees ....
Grand Teton’s lodgepole forests are exquisitely adapted to wildfire but can they survive a changing climate? In 1988, a fire ecologist named Monica Turner clambered into a helicopter and soared over Yellowstone National Park’s still-smoldering forests. One fire after another had torched the park that infamous summer, ultimately burning some 800,000 acres, and Turner expected devastation. Instead she beheld a green-and-black quilt, burned forests and living ones mingled across the landscape. A year later, lodgepole pine seedlings carpeted the ground so densely that, she said, “you couldn’t put your foot down without squashing a whole bunch of them.” The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s forests, she realized, were more resilient than anyone had imagined. ....