2026年考研英语一阅读 Text 4 原文翻译及答案解析

When Tom Swetnam joined the U.S. Forest Service in the 1970s, his mandate was to “put everything out,” he recalled. But when Swetnam enrolled in graduate school at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, he was surprised to find a record of repeated blazes dating back hundreds of years before European colonists arrived on the continent. Some of the trees he analyzed bore more than 20 fire scars among their rings.

汤姆·斯维特南回忆道，当他在20世纪70年代加入美国林务局时，他的任务是“扑灭一切火灾”。然而，当斯维特南进入亚利桑那大学树轮研究实验室攻读研究生时，他惊讶地发现了一段记录，显示在欧洲殖民者抵达该大陆之前数百年，这里就曾反复发生过火灾。他分析的一些树木的年轮中带有超过20处火疤。

The fact that fires happened so often meant they couldn't have been severe enough to kill most trees. Instead, a growing body of research showed that frequent, low-severity fires made many ecosystems healthier. They rid the forest of dead and sick trees, reducing competition and curbing the spread of disease. Because flammable material couldn't build up on the landscape, blazes tended to move slowly and peter out when they reached the footprints of previous burns.

火灾如此频繁这一事实意味着它们不可能严重到足以杀死大多数树木。相反，越来越多的研究表明，频繁、低强度的火灾使许多生态系统更加健康。这些火灾清除了森林中的枯死和病弱树木，减少了竞争，并遏制了疾病的蔓延。由于地表上易燃物质无法大量堆积，火势往往蔓延缓慢，并在到达先前火烧过的地方时逐渐熄灭。

In 2022, Swetnam and other scientists teamed up to compile a database of fire-scarred trees from across the continent. Their North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN) provided the basis for a study published last month. In the study, the researchers compared the historical fire cadence with the wildfires recorded over the past few decades, and uncovered a striking shortfall. The NAFSN sites experienced less than a quarter of the number of fires that would have been expected without fire suppression.

2022年，斯维特南与其他科学家合作，整理了一个涵盖整个大陆的带火疤树木数据库。他们的北美树轮火疤网络为上个月发表的一项研究提供了基础。在这项研究中，研究人员将历史上的火灾节奏与过去几十年记录的野火进行了比较，并发现了一个显著的差距。NAFSN站点经历的火灾数量不到在没有灭火抑制情况下预期数量的四分之一。

This deficit is a testament to the effectiveness of modern firefighting, said Kelly Martin, a past president of the International Association of Wildland Fire. “Yet the combined consequences of suppression and climate change have eroded humanity's ability to suppress fires, particularly those that ignite under the most dangerous weather conditions.”

国际野火协会前主席凯莉·马丁表示，这种缺失证明了现代消防的有效性。“然而，灭火抑制和气候变化的共同后果，已经削弱了人类抑制火灾的能力，尤其是在最危险天气条件下发生的火灾。”

To prevent entire ecosystems from going up in smoke, Martin said, people must bring healthy fire back to places that need it. At Yosemite National Park, Martin oversaw the use of what is known as prescribed burns to make the landscape more resilient. These fires were carefully planned and intentionally ignited during periods when weather kept the blazes easy to control, and helped eliminate some of the fuel that had built up around the important park's facilities. Research shows that these prescribed burns make subsequent wildfires less severe, even if later fires happen under the most dangerous weather conditions.

马丁说，为了防止整个生态系统化为灰烬，人们必须将健康的火带回到需要它的地方。在约塞米蒂国家公园，马丁监督了使用所谓的“计划烧除”来使景观更具韧性的工作。这些火灾经过精心计划，并在天气使得火势易于控制的时期故意点燃，有助于清除在重要公园设施周围积聚的燃料。研究表明，这些计划烧除使随后的野火强度降低，即使后来的火灾发生在最危险的天气条件下。

Yet even as scientists and public officials increasingly agree on the need for more fires in our forests, climate change is making this tactic more challenging, experts said. “It's a double-edged sword because wildfires are getting more severe and larger under climate change and we need this work even more, but then the work gets more challenging,” said Susan Prichard, a fire ecologist at the University of Washington.

然而，专家表示，尽管科学家和公众官员越来越多地认同需要在我们的森林中增加火灾，但气候变化正使这一策略更具挑战性。华盛顿大学的火灾生态学家苏珊·普里查德说：“这是一把双刃剑，因为气候变化正在使野火变得更加严重和大规模，我们更加需要这项工作，但这项工作也变得更加具有挑战性。”