scrAPES #4 The west is so dry even a rain forest is on fire

scrAPES #4 The west is so dry even a rain forest is on fire
Published: July 13 2015
By: Sarah Kaplan
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/13/the-west-is-so-dry-even-a-rainforest-is-on-fire/?postshare=271438792457737
Topic: Habitat Destruction

   This article is about Washington State's Olympic National Park was so dry that the rain forest caught on fire. The rain forest was the wettest place in the U.S. It has 150 inches of rain which soaked the soil and made it very rich. The landscape of the rain forest was so pretty that it was so majestic that behind the mist a dinosaur could come stomping any minute. But saddly this year the tree trunks fell down at their base as they where being burned. The rain forest became very dry the fire passed from tree to tree. As they dropped the fire was spreading through the ground as well. The paradise fire has consumed about 1,600 acres of the forest and they don't expect to put down the fire until September 30. In lots of forest fire are just a part of natural cycle of growth.

    The reason why I chose this article is because whenever a rain forest is caught on fire it saddens me because we rely on the materials the rain forest provides. The most interesting thing that grabbed my attention was that the fire consumed about 1.600 acres of the forest that is a lot! That will take many months for those acres to be recovered. Something new I learned is that fire is just a part of the natural cycle of growth in a rain forest, I thought fire was the rain forests worse enemy.

   The article is important to environmental science because we need rain forests to survive. The rain forest provides us medicine, food, shelter, and oxygen basic human needs for us to survive in the world. Without rain forest it would be a lot harder for us to survive. If rain forests keep burning down we wont be able to grow food, discover new medicines, or breath fresh air. What we should do now is plant more tree's and recover all the damage the fire has done to the rain forest. We should keep protecting rain forests and discover a way to stop the fire.