Inside the search for a better way to fight wildfires

[Ptah]

MISSOULA, Montana -- Hundreds of square miles in California have been overcome by wildfires this summer, in part fueled by a prolonged drought.

And while firefighters in Southern California work around the clock to control the flames, scientists hundreds of miles away are waging a different sort of battle - the one to fully understand how these blazes spread.

“There is an expression that everyone uses here in the U.S., ‘spreads like wildfire,’ yet we don’t even know how wildfires spread,” said Mark Finney, a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service.

The U.S. Forest Service’s Fire Lab in Missoula, Montana, houses a burn chamber to designed specifically to answer that question.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-wildfires-us-forest-service-searces-for-better-way-to-fight-blazes/