Step-by-step: Forests of the future

Near the community of Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, the forest smells faintly of vanilla from the red-barked ponderosa pines and the lingering smokey ash from trees burned in the last round of prescribed burns. Walking through the open forest, Matt Champa, a fuels planner for the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grasslands, explains why managing forests for fire is a year-round job.

“No matter the month or the year, we have to be preparing these forests for the next fire,” he says. “We do it step by step by step. And the latest science helps guide us.”