APACHE-SITGREAVES NATIONAL FORESTS — Plumes of smoke drifted across the sky, wispy columns that traced a path to a smattering of downed trees still smoldering in the wake of yet another wildfire.
Federal land managers have started their assessment of the burn scar, but already, life is finding its way back.
At the base of the tree trunks, in patches across the forest floor, grass has grown. The only evidence of the wildfire that burned through the area just a few days earlier was the blackened tips of each blade and the darkened soil where ferns sprout...