Denver • Acrid yellow smoke clogs the skies of major Western U.S. cities, a human-caused fire in the Columbia River Gorge rains ash on Portland, Oregon, and a century-old backcountry chalet burns to the ground in Montana’s Glacier National Park.
Wildfires are chewing across dried-out Western forests and grassland, putting 2017 on track to be among the worst fire seasons in a decade.
For all of 2015, a record 15,800 square miles (41,000 square kilometers) burned. In 2012, 14,600 square miles (38,000 square kilometers) were scorched.
Two dozen species of beetles have killed trees on nearly 85,000 square miles (220,000 square kilometers) in the Western U.