Summaries | Headlines

Wildfires Leave Behind More Than Ashes (October 8, 2007) -- The recent wildfires raging throughout the Southern California region have already caused plenty of devastation, leaving lost lives, charred homes, property destroyed and families displaced. But what ... > full story

Greeks Get Space-based Help In Wake Of Deadly Fires (September 23, 2007) -- Cleanup and rebuilding teams responding to the devastation across Greece caused by this summer's deadly fires are getting help from space. A series of crisis map products based on satellite ... > full story

Protecting Homes From Wildfires: New Firebrand Aids Research (September 17, 2007) -- Crackling embers and glowing firebrands might make for a romantic evening in front of the fireplace, but for homeowners in high fire-risk areas, windborne fire material is the stuff of nightmares. To ... > full story

Greece Suffers More Fires In 2007 Than In Last Decade, Satellites Reveal (September 3, 2007) -- Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other European countries have over the last decade, according to data from ESA satellites. The country is currently battling an outbreak ... > full story

Wildfires: Homes Fuel The Fires More Than Forests (August 30, 2007) -- Why do some forest fires spread rapidly over large areas, destroying and damaging many homes, while others are contained with minimal damage? New research shows a major factor is whether homes are ... > full story

Fires Raging In Greece (August 27, 2007) -- Large parts of the Greek countryside - from the island of Evia north of Athens to the Peloponnese in the south - have been ravaged by some of the worst wildfires in living memory. Firefighting ... > full story

Climate Change Threatens Siberian Forests (August 5, 2007) -- Catastrophic forest fire outbreaks in Siberia are happening more frequently because of climate change, new research suggests. In Central Siberia alone, fires have destroyed 38 000 square kilometers ... > full story

Floods And Fires Across Europe Captured From Space (July 30, 2007) -- Highlighting the extreme weather conditions hitting Europe, space sensors aboard ESA's Envisat satellite have detected the worst floodwaters to hit Britain for 60 years and deadly fires raging ... > full story

Satellite Survey Links Tropical Park Fires With Poverty And Corruption (July 12, 2007) -- According to the first global assessment of forest fire control effectiveness in tropical parks, poverty and corruption correlate closely with lack of fire protection in tropical moist forests. A ... > full story

Early Fire Risk For Mountains Near Los Angeles (July 4, 2007) -- Researchers have developed a new way to predict when vegetation dries to the point it is most vulnerable to large fires in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. This year's forecast says the ... > full story

Salvage Logging, Replanting Increased Biscuit Fire Severity (June 12, 2007) -- The Biscuit Fire of 2002 burned more severely in areas that had been salvage logged and replanted, compared to similar areas that were also burned in a 1987 fire but had been left to regenerate ... > full story

Fire And Structural Safety A Hot Topic For Engineers, And The Nation (June 10, 2007) -- Earthquakes and explosions grab the headlines when structures are toppled, but often the Achilles' heel of engineering is fire. Fire is the follow-up act in disasters. Yet in a research world awash ... > full story

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Wildland fire suppression -- Wildland fire suppression is a unique aspect of firefighting. Wildland firefighting requires different tactics, equipment, and training from the normal structure fire fighting found in populated ... > full article

Controlled burn -- Prescribed or controlled burning is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, or prairie restoration. Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire ... > full article

Smoke -- Smoke is a suspension in air (aerosol) of small particles resulting from incomplete combustion of a fuel. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires (including stoves and lamps) and fireplaces, ... > full article

Bushfire -- A bushfire is a wildfire that occurs in the bush (collective term for forest, scrub, woodland or grassland of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia). In southeast Australia, bushfires tend to be most ... > full article

Smoulder -- Smouldering (or smoldering in American spelling) combustion is a flameless form of combustion, deriving its heat from oxidations occurring on the surface of a solid fuel. Common examples are the ... > full article

Wildfire -- A wildfire, also known as a forest fire, vegetation fire, grass fire, brush fire, or bushfire (in Australasia), is an uncontrolled fire often occurring in wildland areas, but which can also consume ... > full article

Firestorm -- A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. A firestorm is created as a result of the "chimney effect" as the heat of the original ... > full article

Fire fighting -- Firefighting is the act of extinguishing destructive fires. A firefighter fights these fires and prevents destruction of life, property and the environment. Firefighting is a highly technical ... > full article

Savanna -- A savanna or savannah is a grassland with widely spaced trees, and occurs in several types of biomes. In savannas, grasses and trees are co-dominant vegetation types, with trees and grasses often ... > full article

Taiga -- Taiga is a biome characterized by coniferous forests. Covering most of inland Alaska, Canada, Sweden, Finland, inland Norway, northern Kazakhstan and Russia (especially Siberia), as well as parts of ... > full article

Forest -- A forest is an area with a high density of trees (or, historically, a wooded area set aside for hunting). These plant communities cover large areas of the globe and function as animal habitats, ... > full article

Old growth forest -- Old growth forest, sometimes called late seral forest or ancient forest or primary forest is an area of forest that has attained great age and exhibits unique biological features. Old growth forests ... > full article

Deforestation -- Deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non-forest land use such as arable land, urban use, logged area or wasteland. Historically, this meant conversion to grassland or to its ... > full article

Air pollution -- Air pollution is a broad term applied to any chemical, physical (particulate matter), or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a complex, ... > full article

Prairie Restoration -- Prairie Restoration is an ecologically friendly way to restore some of the prairie land that was lost to industry, farming and commerce. Ecologically, prairie restoration aids in conservation of our ... > full article

Catastrophe modeling -- Catastrophe modeling (also known as cat modeling) is the process of using computer-assisted calculations to estimate the losses that could be sustained by a portfolio of properties due to a ... > full article

Forestry -- Forestry is the art, science, and practice of studying and managing forests and plantations, and related natural resources. Silviculture, a related science, involves the growing and tending of trees ... > full article

Ecological succession -- Ecological succession, a fundamental concept in ecology, refers to more-or-less predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community. Succession may be initiated ... > full article

Logging -- Logging is the process in which trees are felled (cut down) usually as part of a timber harvest. Timber is harvested to supply raw material for the wood products industry including logs for sawmills ... > full article

1906 San Francisco earthquake -- The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12am on Wednesday, April 18, ... > full article