A NASA research scientist analyzing satellite images of the earth’s surface has detected a marked increase in wildfire fuel across former ranchlands at the Point Reyes National Seashore, offering the first quantitative evidence of how quickly the landscape is changing after cattle were removed from most of the peninsula.
Christopher Potter, an earth scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, found that dense vegetation—the readiest combustible fuel for wildfires—was, on average, 62 percent greater in March…