US West

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Could we use volcanoes to make electricity? – Lawrence, age 7, Dublin, California Turning red-hot lava from an active volcano into electricity would be dangerous and unreliable. Volcanoes don’t erupt on predictable schedules, and lava cools too quickly. But many countries, including the U.S., have found ways to tap volcanic heat to make electricity. Geothermal energy comes from heat generated by natural processes deep within the Earth. In most areas, this heat only warms rocks and underground water near the surface. In volcanically active regions, however, the heat is much more intense. Sometimes it melts rock, forming magma. Volcanoes act like giant heat vents, raising magma closer to Earth’s surface. Some of this mo...

Strong winds blew across mountain slopes after a record-setting warm, dry summer. Small fires began to blow up into huge conflagrations. Towns in crisis scrambled to escape as fires bore down. This could describe any number of recent events, in places as disparate as Colorado, California, Canada and Hawaii. But this fire disaster happened over 110 years ago in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana. The “Big Burn” of 1910 still holds the record for the largest fire season in the Northern Rockies. Hundreds of fires burned over 3 million acres – roughly the size of Connecticut – most in just two days. The fires destroyed towns, killed 86 people and galvanized public policies committed to putting out every fire. Many residents of Wallace, Idaho, fled on trains ahead of the 1910 blaze. Volunteers who stayed saved part of the town, but about a third of it burned. R.H. McKay/U.S. Forest Service...