Two days after announcing they were scaling back the search for a University of Washington professor missing in the backcountry of Mount Rainier National Park, park officials announced Sunday that they were sending searchers back into the field.

The 1988 wildfires that drew the nation's attention to the world's first national park were considered simply part of the fire regime that historically has existed in Yellowstone National Park. But in the aftermath of the fires, "climate change" entered the country's lexicon and increasingly intense wildfires have forced the National Park Service in the West to both evaluate and refine its approach to battling flames that are arriving with greater and greater ferocity.

Work on a new enclosure for bison at Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma is getting under way this month, with fencing to be completed in the spring.

Flames and far-flying embers from the East Troublesome Fire have spread across Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, forcing the evacuation of Grand Lake on the west side of the park and prompting officials to ask visitors to leave Estes Park on the eastern side.