Bulldozed, burned and bombed, the national forests on fire are a place where most environmental concerns go out the window in the name of winning the war on wildfire. Here's another look at firefighting practices and their consequences.

• Who Needs Help Like This? This is a personal story of Oregon's Biscuit Fire and the effects that government firefighting had on one family's property, physical environment and lives. by Jerry Sorensen
• Red Rain. Effective? Yes. Toxic? Probably. by Patricia Marshall
• Into the Black. Backfires might save lives. Or they might destroy property. Lighting backfires is an imprecise science. by Mark Blaine

• From Tree to Sea. A Northwest Indian tribe asserts its cultural rights to harvest an old-growth cedar from the Olympic National Forest and opens a debate about tribal rights and environmental preservation. by Colleen Kaleda
• Strange Fruit: Ohio Forestry, the Supreme Court and the Ripeness Doctrine. How a case on the Wayne National Forest in Ohio set a precedent for environmental law. by Cheri Brooks
• Publisher's Note. Our 100 Years War. by Andy Stahl
• When the Last Forest Researcher Retires, Will Someone Please Turn Out the Lights? For twenty years, U.S. Forest Research budgets have remained flat while overhead has grown with the economy. The result is a lot fewer researchers coring trees and counting owls. by Paul D. Thacker
• Point of View. Outsourcing and the Alternatives. by Gifford Pinchot III

Fish biologist Rick Golden tries to bring perspective to management of the Ozark National Forest's streams. By Mark Blaine

• Another Dry Year? Southwestern national forests have been pushed to the limit after a decade of drought. Now forest managers have tough decisions to make. by Jennifer Savage
• The Shelton District: How a Community-Based Forestry Agreement Led to Ecological Ruin. How a supposedly sustainable logging program cut itself out of trees in a few decades. by Tim McNulty
• Publisher's Note. Forest Temps. by Andy Stahl
• Point of View. Forest Service: Simply a Job? by Guy W. Pence
• Inner Voice. Skeleton Crew to Manage Forests. by Andy Stahl
• The People's Prairie: Broad Horizons, Narrow Views. Far from being the biodiverse Eden described by Lewis and Clark, the Great Plains have, in two centuries, become little more than pasture. by Paul D. Thacker

A new tribal restoration project could return 692,000 acres of Oregon's Winema National Forest to its former owners—the Klamath Tribes. by Colleen Kaleda

• A Prickly Issue. One man confronts the futility of bureaucracy in Idaho with a backpack sprayer and some verbal herbicide. by Brandon Lever
• Restoration: A Plan. Watching Noah's ark work in reverse in the wild Yaak Valley of the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. by Rick Bass
• Doc Smith's History Lesson. He came up through the big fires and now he has a story to tell about forests. They’re a mess. by Stephen Pyne

Two generations ago, the Tenth Mountain Division prepared for war at Camp Hale. Now it's a national forest with a dilemma: How do you remember history and restore ecosystems? By Allen Best

• Never Too Rich, Never Too Thin. Thinning as a one-size-fits-all prescription for fire management in the west ignores the complexity of the problem in favor of public logging. by Mark Blaine
• In Its Primal State: Chugach Forest Plan Tests the Definition of Wilderness. What is wilderness in wild Alaska? The Chugach National Forest feels the stress of use despite its vast protected acreage. by Kathie Durbin
• A Thoughtful Fire Plan, A Political Hot Potato. A long-standing, liberal policy of letting some fires burn in the Bob Marshall Wilderness is paying off, returning balance to the natural fire regime. by Jim Mann

Caught between a shriveling economy and a withered resource, public land ranching is fading. Now greens are courting ranchers to reverse the damage caused by a failed federal promise. By Mark Blaine

• “Welfare Ranching” by George Wuerthner is reviewed by Ed Marston, who says the book is driven by romanticism.
• “Crossing the 100th Meridian” by Ed Marston is reviewed by George Wuerthner, who says the author is too invested in grazing to understand its consequences.
• Picture Imperfect. Sometimes understanding the landscape takes a novel approach. One woman does it by analyzing dubiously pretty pictures on post cards. by Patricia Marshall
• A Rancher's Decision. The cattle are gone. The ranch hasn't made any money for years. The family works off the ranch to earn a living. Is a federal buyout the solution? by Jamie Passaro
• Drier & Drier. Forests have become progressively drier. For public land managers, this means tough decisions. by Mark Blaine
• Where the Antelope Roam. George Reynolds retired from the U.S. Forest Service but couldn’t leave the land. He now works to return rangeland to antelope habitat in Oregon. by Patricia Marshall