Above photo: Fire-damaged Detroit, Oregon, following the 2020 Labor Day blazes. A new wildfire risk assessment tool that takes social vulnerability into account indicates more than 400 communities in the Pacific Northwest are at greater risk than previously thought. However, researchers at Oregon State University and The Nature Conservancy say their assessment tool could inform…

The Pacific Northwest has seen below-normal snow this season — and new research from Portland State University suggests that the region’s snowmelt-dependent water resources could face growing challenges in the years ahead as forest fires and winter rainstorms become more frequent.

During the 2024–2025 spawning season, endangered Central California Coast coho salmon migrated to Mendocino Coast rivers in numbers few scientists thought they would see in their careers. Monitoring teams estimated that more than 30,000 adult coho returned, double the previous season’s record-breaking return of 15,000 coho. These numbers represent a significant leap from the past decade, where as few as 3,000 fish returned annually.