MIT researchers and colleagues are working to find out whether energy from trees can power a network of sensors to prevent spreading forest fires.

A fire in the Borrabbin National Park between Southern Cross and Coolgardie Western Australia, so far 29,000 hectares and killed three truck drivers when the convoy they were travelling in was engulf by the flames.

Armed with a pair of tweezers and a handful of beetle droppings, University of Alberta forestry graduate Tyler Cobb has discovered why the bug-sized dung is so important to areas ravaged by fire.

Forest fires and other blazes in the United States likely release about 30 percent as much mercury as the nation's industrial sources, according to initial estimates in a new study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Fires in Alaska, California, Oregon, Louisiana, and Florida emit particularly large quantities of the toxic metal, and the Southeast emits more than any other region, according to the research.

Cleanup and rebuilding teams responding to the devastation across Greece caused by this summer’s deadly fires are getting help from space. A series of crisis map products based on satellite acquisitions of affected areas are being provided to aid damage assessment efforts following the activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.

A new study involving the University of Colorado at Boulder that modeled the spread of forest fires in Colorado and other western states indicates the size and intensity of fires is directly linked with the density and flammability of houses built in the so-called “wildland-urban interface.”

Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other European countries have over the last decade, according to data from ESA satellites. The country is currently battling an outbreak of blazes, which began last Thursday, that have spread across the country killing more than 60 people.

The situation in Greece, which has been devastated by forest fires and left 63 dead, is steadily improving with only 23 fires still burning in two regions, a Greek fire service source said Wednesday.

Why do some forest fires spread rapidly over large areas, destroying and damaging many homes, while others are contained with minimal damage?