As the United States faces what's expected to be a bad fire year and an even worse fire decade, Americans can expect to see more controlled burns, perhaps the epitome of fighting fire with fire. After more than a century of suppressing fire at all costs – a strategy that made wildfires worse – the Forest Service has embraced so-called prescribed fire. Combined with forest thinning, it is considered by many the gold standard of land management in overgrown forests. In January, the U.S. Forest Service set a historic goal of treating up to 50 million acres a year with mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. Swipe for photos of prescribed burnings this year, and learn more about prescribed fires, and why experts believe they are necessary as climate change makes wildfires bigger and hotter, through our link in bio.