Dry, warm, and windy conditions across the U.S. Great Plains led to extreme fire activity in March 2026.
The National fire has burned tens of thousands of acres within the Florida preserve, fueled by vegetation dried by prolonged drought and killed by recent frost.
Tens of thousands of people fled to safety as blazes spread throughout the country’s Biobío and Ñuble regions.
An increasingly flammable landscape combined with more lightning strikes is leading to larger, more frequent, and more intense fires than the landscape is adapted for.
To the untrained eye, it did not look like a particularly complicated mission. A large black quadcopter drone, more than two meters spanning the propeller tips, sat parked on the grass. Nestled between the legs of its landing gear was a red balloon fi…