Wildfire Legacies
Canadian Geographic|May/June 2018

STUDIES OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES’ FIRE-SCARRED WATERSHEDS ARE REVEALING A SURPRISING RESILIENCE

John Bennett
Wildfire Legacies

IN 2014, MASSIVE WILDFIRES swept across the southern Northwest Territories, incinerating forests and destroying wildlife habitat across 5,000 square kilometres of landscape, forcing the closure of the Yellowknife Highway and polluting the air as far away as southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These events, which reflect a worldwide trend that’s seeing wildfires increasing in frequency and size, gave University of Alberta biologist Suzanne Tank and her colleagues an exceptional opportunity to start investigating some of the least understood consequences of northern wildfires: their effect on the ecosystems of streams and lakes.

This story is from the May/June 2018 edition of Canadian Geographic.

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This story is from the May/June 2018 edition of Canadian Geographic.

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