Biden administration announces plan to spend billions to prevent wildfires

Drought and extreme heat, made worse by global warming, have played a role by making forests tinder-dry and easier to burn. But many researchers say that more than a century of management policies that called for every fire to be extinguished, no matter how small, also contributed to the problem by allowing dead vegetation to accumulate and add fuel to fires.

That is why the Biden administration has decided to use thinning and intentional burning to restore forests to conditions closer to those that existed in the past, when fire was a regular part of the forest life cycle and naturally removed some trees and dead underbrush.