USDA Blog

Privately-owned forests provide water, recreational opportunities, timber and other forest products, as well as habitat for fish and wildlife. However, as forests become fragmented by roads or converted to development, the benefits they provide can be compromised or lost altogether.

Fire season now spans the entire year. Before summer even begins, forests are primed in large parts of the country for large fires that spread rapidly in trees that are dehydrated from drought, compromised from fighting off bugs, and often competing for space in overly dense forests.

With a brief countdown and the flick of a switch, the towering U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree, on the West Lawn of Capitol Hill, lit up the dark. Visitors from all across America, who stood in near freezing temperatures beneath the majestic pine, cheered as the tree’s thousands of lights glistened the...