Ideally, an area burned in a forest fire can be left alone, and the forest will regenerate naturally.
But not all fires create ideal situations. In fact, the large, hot fires of California appear to stall the regeneration of conifer forests.
That's the finding of a joint study of the US Forest Service and the plant sciences department at the University of California-Davis.
If conifers do not grow back naturally, how should humans help? We ask, in a conversation with Hugh Safford of the Forest Service and Kevin Welch from UC-Davis.
