Study: Boreal Forests Burning at Historic Rate

According to a new study of the Yukon Flats region, the world's boreal forests are burning at a rate considered historically unprecedented.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner says researchers in the study concluded fire rates would likely continue to grow in the future.

The study was published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

Researchers say both fire frequency and the amount of biomass burned are higher now than they've been in the past 10,000 years.

State Forester Chris Maisch says both the length of the fire season and the intensity of the fires have increased in just the past decade.

People in Alaska's interior have been increasingly inundated with smoke from wildfires, which can cause and aggravate respiratory problems.