美国国家公共电台 NPR Yosemite Valley To Reopen After Closure Due To Fire and Smoke

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It's peak tourist season in Yosemite National Park, but the most popular spot has been quiet for nearly three weeks. In Yosemite Valley, there are no climbers on its cliffs, no people on its trails. Smoke from the nearby Ferguson fire shut down parts of the park in late July. And now, officials say it will reopen on Tuesday. Capital Public Radio's Ezra David Romero reports on what fire means for Yosemite.

EZRA DAVID ROMERO, BYLINE¹: The plan this weekend is to keep the fire out of Yosemite Valley. Firefighters are working to contain the blaze about three miles away, says Forest Service Planning Officer Johnny Clem.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHNNY CLEM: Yosemite Valley is absolutely gorgeous, and we would prefer it to be green and not black.

ROMERO: Fire began almost a month ago in an area that hadn't burned in decades. This spring, officials said they expected a big blaze.

(SOUNDBITE OF HIKING)

ROMERO: That's when I met Leroy Westerling in Yosemite Valley. He's a professor at the University of California, Merced.

LEROY WESTERLING: This is actually one of my favorite places.

(SOUNDBITE OF HIKING)

ROMERO: We're hiking in an area near Lower Yosemite Fall - one of the park's busiest selfie spots. Dead pine trees are all around us.

WESTERLING: And we're looking at some pretty dense², brushy sort of oak coming up here, with cedars³ and some dead pine trees.

ROMERO: Westerling studies the connection between climate change and fire in the Sierra Nevada. And he's focusing some 500 years into the future. Will Yosemite be colder, warmer or a lot hotter? Some of his predictions suggest little to no change. But the most extreme depicting⁴ Yosemite some people might not like.

WESTERLING: In the valley where we are today, I think this is more oak woodland kind of landscape. It'll still be a beautiful place to visit, but it won't look like this.

ROMERO: It's a dramatic change for a place idolised as a lush pine forest. What would people think if the rich, green views of Yosemite Valley were replaced with dry grass, shrubs⁵ and oaks? The Ferguson fire is largely due to overgrown brush and dead pine trees. That was exacerbated⁶ with California's most recent drought killing⁷ more than 129 million trees. To deal with all this die-off, Yosemite's Fire Chief, Kelly Martin, says park and forest managers need to change the way they think about fire.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KELLY MARTIN: We need to be an advocate for good fires on the landscape to prevent these big fires in the future.

ROMERO: Martin's talking about lighting⁸ fires on purpose during cooler months. That's called a prescribed burn. This idea might sound odd in the middle of fire season. But Martin says this tool could greatly reduce how big fires grow.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARTIN: I love watching how fire is a renewal⁹ agent. It's not just a destructive agent.

ROMERO: Martin thinks of Yosemite like a patchwork¹⁰ quilt with only some finished pieces. Those are the areas that have already burned the missing patches are the places with the highest fire risk. She wants to connect those by burying them in a controlled way. It's a practice that she says needs better funding.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARTIN: We're just storm chasers to these great, big wildfires which is almost $3 billion a year. And the prescribed fire program might only get a tenth of that money nationwide.

ROMERO: Even though this idea scares some people who live in forested areas, Martin says if they really want the valley to remain mostly green and lush, they're going to have to be alright with it. For NPR News, I'm Ezra David Romero.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

3 cedars   

雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The old cedars were badly damaged in the storm. 风暴严重损害了古老的雪松。
• Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. 1黎巴嫩哪，开开你的门，任火烧灭你的香柏树。

4 depicting   

描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• a painting depicting the Virgin and Child 一幅描绘童贞马利亚和圣子耶稣的画
• The movie depicting the battles and bloodshed is bound to strike home. 这部描写战斗和流血牺牲的影片一定会取得预期效果。

5 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

6 exacerbated   

v.使恶化，使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The symptoms may be exacerbated by certain drugs. 这些症状可能会因为某些药物而加重。
• The drugs they gave her only exacerbated the pain. 他们给她吃的药只是加重了她的痛楚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

8 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

9 renewal   

adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来

参考例句：

• Her contract is coming up for renewal in the autumn.她的合同秋天就应该续签了。
• Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。

10 patchwork   

n.混杂物；拼缝物

参考例句：

• That proposal is nothing else other than a patchwork.那个建议只是一个大杂烩而已。
• She patched new cloth to the old coat,so It'seemed mere patchwork. 她把新布初到那件旧上衣上，所以那件衣服看上去就象拼凑起来的东西。