A nearly seven-decade-long experiment in South Africa’s largest national park is yielding surprising results about how fires mold savanna land. The analysis from Kruger National Park, published in the journal Nature, found that stamping out fires generates much smaller carbon sequestration gains than previously thought — a mere 0.35 metric tons of carbon per hectare per year. This is a fraction of earlier estimates, some of them as high as 9.4 metric tons. According to an opinion piece by Niall P. Hanan and Anthony M. Swemmer published along with the study, the results raise questions about wh…

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