ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press
Wearing soot-smudged, fire-resistant clothing and helmets, several wildland firefighters armed with hoes moved through a stand of ponderosa pines as flames tore through the underbrush.
The firefighters weren’t there to extinguish the fire. They had started it.
The prescribed burn, ignited this month near the scenic mountain town of Bend, is part of a massive effort in wildlands across the U.S. West to prepare for a fire season that’s expected to be even worse than last year’s record-shattering one.
The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have thinned by hand, machines and prescribed burns about 1.8 million acres of forest and brushland since last season, officials from the agencies told The Associated Press. They typically treat some 3 million acres every year.
‘Nothing looks good’ preparing for wildfire season
28 minutes ago US Forest Service firefighters carry out a prescribed burn on the grounds of the High Desert Museum, near Bend, Oregon. Associated Press
Don Thompson, Thomas Peipert,
Associated Press
Wearing soot-smudged, fire-resistant clothing and helmets, several wildland firefighters armed with hoes moved through a stand of ponderosa pines as flames tore through the underbrush.
The firefighters weren’t there to extinguish the fire. They had started it.
The prescribed burn, ignited this month near the scenic mountain town of Bend, is part of a massive effort in wildlands across the US West to prepare for a fire season that’s expected to be even worse than last year′s record-shattering one.