A large-scale analysis of wildfires in the Western United States shows that U.S. Forest Service fuel-reduction treatments not only curb fire spread and intensity, but also, for each dollar invested, generate more than three times the value in avoided damages. Wildfire activity has intensified dramatically over the last several decades, imposing widespread economic, environmental, and public health damages that amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the United States alone. These risks are expected to grow as climate change and development in fire-prone areas continue. A central driver of worsening wildfire severity is the buildup of combustible vegetation, or “fuel loads,” which were kept in check historically by frequent, low-intensity fires, including those deliberately set through Indigenous land stewardship practices. Fuel-reduction strategies such as prescribed burns and forest thinning aim to restore more resilient conditions and mitigate wildfire-related damages. However, these measures remain underutilized, in part because their economic benefits are delayed and difficult to quantify, and because limited data and complex fire dynamics make it challenging to evaluate their overall effectiveness.

Focusing on the Western United States, where wildfire risk and data are abundant, Frederik Strabo and colleagues compiled a high-resolution dataset encompassing 285 wildfires that intersected with United States Forest Service (USFS) fuel treatment activities across 11 states between 2017 and 2023. By comparing observed fires with modeled scenarios in which no treatments occurred, Strabo et al. estimated the damage avoided due to fuel treatments and assigned the avoided damage an economic value. This allowed the authors to evaluate not only whether fuel treatments work, but also when and where they are most cost-effective. According to the findings, fuel treatments substantially reduced both the spread and intensity of wildfires, likely by reducing flame intensity and making conditions more manageable for suppression crews. In total, treatments reduced total burned area by 36% over the study period compared to scenarios in which no fuel treatments were applied. The authors’ estimates suggest that these interventions prevented roughly $2.7 to $2.8 billion in damages, including reduced property loss, carbon dioxide emissions, and harmful air pollution. Moreover, on average, each dollar invested in fuel reduction yields more than three dollars in avoided damages, with many projects performing even better, suggesting that targeted fuel treatment strategies could further amplify these returns. “But realizing [these strategies’] full potential will require more than scientific consensus – it will demand bold policy reform,” write Strabo et al.

Plants underpin the majority of life on Earth, yet climate change is rapidly reshaping their habitats and elevating their extinction risk in largely unknown ways. Now, in two studies, researchers use large-scale evolutionary modeling and climate projections to fill these gaps, revealing substantial losses of plant diversity and identifying priority species and limits of conservation strategies. Understanding the endangered statuses of plants is crucial to understanding the biosphere’s future and guiding effective conservation efforts. Yet plants are largely absent from global biodiversity assessments. Although more than two in five plant species are estimated to be threatened with extinction, only about 20% have global International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) Red List assessments. Across two studies, Félix Forest and colleagues and Junna Wang and colleagues present two distinct predictive approaches that address the current gaps in available plant biodiversity data.

Using data from the latest version of the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered index (EDGE2) and computational modeling, Forest et al. reconstructed large-scale evolutionary trees encompassing all 335,497 known angiosperm species and combined them with projected risk data. This allowed the authors to identify species that are both evolutionarily unique and at risk of extinction. According to the findings, roughly 21% of angiosperm evolutionary history is at risk of extinction. Moreover, the study identified 9,945 angiosperm species that, if conserved, would most effectively preserve the deep evolutionary heritage of plant life.

In another study, Wang et al. analyzed the geographic distributions of 67,664 vascular plant species to forecast how climate change may alter their habitats over time. By comparing the pace of environmental change with each species’ ability to relocate, the authors assessed whether plants could successfully track shifting conditions or face increasing extinction risk. Wang et al. found that the primary driver of plant extinction is not a plant’s limited ability to shift its ranges, but rather the widespread loss of suitable habitats caused by climate change. Using several greenhouse gas emission scenarios for the end of the century, the findings predict that between 7% and 16% of the species examined could face a high risk of extinction, as most of their viable habitats disappear. Although shifts in species’ geographic ranges are unlikely to substantially reduce global plant extinctions, they are expected to increase local plant diversity across roughly 28% of the Earth’s land surface. According to Wang et al., facilitating range shifts via conservation efforts may help sustain or even enhance regional richness. However, it does little to prevent the broader, worldwide loss of plant species.

“Although Forest et al. and Wang et al. used different scales of time and space and studied different, but largely overlapping, groups of plants, both studies revealed that plant extinctions do not occur randomly across geographical areas,” write Rosa Scherson and Federico Luebert in a related Perspective. “Large-scale predictive models such as those developed by [the authors] are a valuable tool to enable timely actions that cannot wait until complete knowledge about biodiversity loss is achieved.”