U.S. Forest Service

The U.S. Forest Service has been working with states and other partners to treat more acres every year in hopes of reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfire, but Forest Chief Vicki Christiansen acknowledged that a budget proposal for the next fiscal year could mean no funding for some programs.

There will be 75 candles on his birthday cake and Smokey Bear still hopes none of them start a forest fire. The icon of the longest-running public service campaign in the U.S. is being honored with birthday parties around the country this week, a celebration that includes a social media campaign to share his safety message. “My friends at the...

A deadly fungus threatens one of Hawaii’s most beloved and important species, the ʻōhiʻa tree, and those believed responsible for introducing the threat to the tree in the first place are now being asked to help save it — tourists. The native ʻōhiʻa is sacred to Hawaiians as a cultural touchstone and ecological underpinning for the state’s lush forests and...

A deadly fungus threatens one of Hawaii’s most beloved and important species, the ʻōhiʻa tree, and those believed responsible for introducing the threat to the tree in the first place are now being asked to help save it — tourists. The native ʻōhiʻa is sacred to Hawaiians as a cultural touchstone and ecological underpinning for the state’s lush forests and...

Officials conducted a search on Mount Washington Sunday for a Massachusetts man who has been missing for a week. Porith Stephon Sou, 21, of Dracut, has been missing since Sunday, March 10, but information on his whereabouts remained unknown until his vehicle was located at the Pinkham Notch Visitor center in Pinkham’s Grant on Saturday, March 16. Searchers received information...

A man whose car was stranded in central Oregon snow for five days survived by eating taco sauce packets and starting the engine periodically to warm up. A snowmobiler found Jeremy Taylor, 36, of Sunriver, on Friday and a search and rescue team member who rode to him on a large snow tractor brought him out of the woods, said...

The U.S. Forest Service says police are investigating the death of a Mount Washington climber who was hiking up a snowy and icy area of the Northeast’s highest peak when he apparently slipped and fell more than 300 feet into a boulder-strewn area. The Forest Service said 37-year-old Jeremy Ullmann, of Somerville, Massachusetts, a neuroscientist at Boston Children’s Hospital, died...

A border agent started a massive wildfire in Arizona when a gender-reveal party bomb, packed with explosives, ignited the surrounding brush on fire.

A Border Patrol agent agreed to pay more than $8 million for damage caused by an Arizona wildfire he started by shooting a rifle in a gender reveal gone wrong, NBC News reported. Dennis Dickey, 37, entered the guilty plea Friday. He started the fire by shooting a target, meant to reveal the sex of his baby, that was filled...

The U.S. Forest Service is set to round up 1,000 wild horses and says that many of them could be sold to distant slaughterhouses. The Sacramento Bee reports the roundup is set to begin Oct. 9 and last through the month, and will target horses from a herd in the Devils Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory inside the Modoc National Forest.

Randy Brooks’ son had a request three years ago: What could his dad do to make wildland firefighting safer? To Brooks, a professor at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources who deals with wildland firefighting, it was more of a command. His son, Bo Brooks, is a wildland firefighter who a few days earlier during that 2015 fire...

Alameda Country firefighters came across an undamaged U.S. flag at a cemetery in Northern Calif. They decided to lower it to half staff to honor the two firefighters killed in the Carr fire.

Devastating California wildfires this year — and expectations of more to come under the extremes of climate change — prompted regulators Thursday to toughen rules for utility companies to keep power lines clear of brush and tree branches that can easily spark into flames.

Bailey McDade works as a wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona. Some of her fire gear, and the gear of other first responders, is on display in Boston.

Tourists heading to central Idaho will be in the dark if local officials get their way. The first international dark sky reserve in the United States would fill a chunk of the state’s sparsely populated region that contains night skies so pristine that interstellar dust clouds are visible in the Milky Way.

An astronomy buff and her fiance want to make sure nothing eclipses their Missouri wedding ceremony. Samantha Adams tells The Kansas City Star that her longtime fascination with the stars prompted her to schedule the ceremony for 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 21 — during an extremely rare total solar eclipse. “I couldn’t think of a more dreamlike wedding for myself,”...

Just before sunrise, there’s typically nothing atop Round Butte but the whistle of the wind and a panoramic view of Oregon’s second-highest peak glowing pink in the faint light. But on Aug. 21, local officials expect this lookout point just outside the small town of Madras to be crammed with people from around the world, all hoping for the first...

A researcher says vast numbers of Southern California trees are dying from insects and disease — an unprecedented die-off that may cost the region billions of dollars and leave it much less green.

A Massachusetts man has been charged with reckless driving and vandalism after a crash on Thursday, March 24, 2016, that allegedly began with a tantrum at a Pittsfield Taco Bell.