Climate Lab is a Seattle Times initiative that explores the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The project is funded in part by The Bullitt Foundation, CO2 Foundation, Jim and Birte Falconer, Mike and Becky Hughes, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Martin-Fabert Foundation, Craig McKibben and Sarah Merner, University of Washington and Walker Family Foundation, and its fiscal sponsor is the Seattle Foundation.

LAKE CUSHMAN, Mason County — Chain saw. Gas can. Pulaski ax. Pack.

The gear clanged onto the boat one by one as the Zigzag Hotshots prepared to ferry into the smoke Thursday.

This firefighting team was headed in to clear fuels around homes on the northwest side of the lake. Things were heating up on the Olympic Peninsula’s Bear Gulch fire, the state’s largest

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