Wildfires have scorched over 5 million acres in Alaska, forestry officials said, a new record that signals possible changes in climate conditions and the composition of the vast forests. "We will definitely not have the same kind of forest and landscape that we're familiar with today if this keeps up," Glenn Juday, a forest-sciences professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said. While it is common for vast sections of Alaska wild lands to ignite and smolder under the extended summer daylight, this year's fires have been driven by unusually hot and parched weather and plentiful lightning strikes.