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Winners Gallery | Magazine Issue Reporting Picture Story |
First Place
Mark Thiessen
National Geographic Magazine

"Under Fire"
Second Place
Anthony Suau
TIME

"U.S. Economy Crisis "

Third Place
Justin Maxon
Aurora Select / The Associated Press

"Untitled"

Award of Excellence
Daniel Beltra
reportage by getty images for greenpeace

"New Landscape of the Amazon"
Award of Excellence
Fabio Cuttica
Contrasto

"The Nasa's Long March"
Award of Excellence
Paolo Pellegrin
Magnum for Newsweek

"Wall Street"
First Place
Mark Thiessen
National Geographic Magazine

"Under Fire"

The American West is burning like never before. In fact, wildland fires have scorched record acreage across the United States. Fighting these wildfires is becoming increasingly expensive, costing upward of $3 billion a year in federal funds. Several factors have contributed to this trend, including nearly a century of aggressive fire suppression has left many western US forests overgrown and extremely vulnerable to wildfire, drought and rising global temperatures, and more people living in areas with a high threat of fire.

In certain cases, fire managers will let fires burn in order to restore some of the natural ecological dynamics. But the priority is to protect human lives and, when possible, to keep neighborhoods from going up in flames. Today there are simply more homes and people than ever before in places likely to burn. Americans are rapidly developing the transition area between the deep woods and existing urban areas—some eight million homes were built in this Wildland Urban Interface, or WUI, between the past two censuses. That's more homes than in all of New York City, and it means a lot more ground for firefighters to protect.

 

 
 

 

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