wildfire

Yesterday we heard about northern Arizona’s tree thinning projects and who makes the decision on which trees to cut. In part 2 of that story, what happens to those trees afterward? Flagstaff has always been a logging town, but things have changed. When the U.S. Forest Service began to thin the woods almost a decade ago reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, some thought it would bring a second economic boom for the logging industry. As KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, that heyday hasn’t happened.

Northern Arizona is home to the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world. If you’ve ever hiked through it, you’ve probably seen trees marked with brightly colored paint. That paint is a kind of map for the logging companies that thin the woods and make them more fire-resistant. But which trees get to stay and which have to go—and who makes those decisions? KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports.

Governor Doug Ducey held a briefing Thursday on the state’s wildfire outlook. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports, it comes amid one of the driest winters on record in the Southwest.