Word: forester
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...Forest fires come and go. But this year's may be the worst in a half-century; they could prove to be the worst ever recorded. Some 6.5 million acres have already burned, and by the end of last week, 68 large fires were burning in 10 states. Almost everyone agrees the fires are not normal, not part of the harmonious burn-and-regenerate cycle of nature in business for itself. Brittlely dry heat and lightning without moisture, abetted sometimes by man-made sparks, started the fires. Could past human errors, activating a law of unintended consequences, be to blame...
Experts focus on a paradox: too much effective, overzealous fire fighting in years past unwisely extinguished the natural, smaller, healthy burns that any forest needs--fires that clear the lesser undergrowth but spare the big trees. Most foresters agree that small, "prescribed" burns, carefully controlled, are essential to prevent the larger apocalypse...
...moment, the scientists report, the robotyke has the brainpower of bacteria: "We hope to get up to insect level in a couple of years." Meantime, in another part of the forest, the human genome project is nearly complete. Peering into the future, one dimly discerns a convergence. Here are the projected patterns...
Worst hit has been the Bitterroot Valley, where the skies glow red all night and the smoke on the highways forces vehicles to travel in convoys behind pilot cars. Paul Chamberlain of the U.S. Forest Service, deputy operations chief assigned to the raging valley complex fire, has never seen anything like this disaster. "Many of you have been fighting fires for a long time and haven't ever witnessed a fire event like yesterday," Chamberlain told his tired troops. "You may never witness another one in your whole career." What complicates the fire fighters' job is that the picturesque valley...
DIED. THOMAS FORAN, 76, chief prosecutor in the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial for riots at the 1968 D.N.C.; in Lake Forest, Ill. Foran won convictions against five of the accused protesters, but they never served time...