Wildfires can improve ecosystem health by reducing plant competition, decreasing diseases and pests, and maintaining fire-adapted ecosystems. However, suppression of fires by humans can lead to unnatural fuel loads, increasing fire intensity and dramatically altering the ecosystem. Furthermore, rare or endangered species, especially those with little means to escape a conflagration, such as plants or invertebrates such as peacock spiders, can be threatened with extinction when their habitat is burned.
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