Mark Howell

"Why don't you guys just desalinate water to fight fire?" Introducting FireBusters, a new thing here where I take common “urban myths”...

As fire season in the Eastern and Southern US takes off, we're seeing "new" names associated with national wildfire headlines: New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas, Alabama. This isn't a new thing per se, the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, the Peshtigo Fire took place in Wisconsin back in 1871. An unusually strong cold front came through, shoving several of what we would now call "controlled burns" out of their control lines and merging them into a giant, deadly inferno. The question...

Physical fitness has been a hot-button topic in wildland fire since there’s been wildland fire. As much as people might not like it,...