[Hugin]

In the 40 years since fires sparked by lightning have been allowed to burn unabated in a section of Yosemite National Park, ecologist Scott Stephens has watched extensive conifer forests grow back as a patchwork of not just trees, but also meadows with wetland plants.

Places in the Illilouette Creek Basin that were typically dry are now covered with four inches of water, said Stephens, a professor of fire science at the University of California at Berkeley.

"And, amazingly a lot of these places maintain this wetness even during this four-year drought," he said.

Of course clear cutting patches of forest does the same thing while producing a useful product, but try telling that to an eco-Nazi.

[nickcarraway]

I don’t know about Yosemite, but in some species of tree, fire helps with reproduction.