Castlegar

Five British Columbia communities reached record temperature highs on Thursday as warm weather blanketed much of Western Canada.

Factors like reduced summer precipitation, extreme heat events, and ponderosa pine's superior drought resilience highlight the need to adapt reforestation practices to species more suited to changing environmental conditions.

The Kootenay populations, a fixture on the landscape for thousands of years, succumbed to industrial disturbances and other human activity in their critical habitat.