California’s deadly, damaging wildfires worsen by the year. The state’s naturally dry landscapes, parched by a changing climate, have turned into tinderboxes. A stray match or lightning strike has the capacity to incinerate forests, fields, and neighborhoods. Last year saw a summer and fall of choking smoke and blood-red skies over huge portions of the state. To avoid fiery disaster, local governments often clear away dried brush from the hillsides and fields surrounding homes and streets. But one professor has a rather bananas idea: Barath Raghavan thinks growing groves of…
