Four ageing dams were removed to restore the Klamath River, but wildfire crews now face a new challenge as the reservoirs disappear

• Removing four ageing hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River was always going to be a delicate undertaking, but one complication came from a source that had nothing to do with fish or river ecology at all: wildfire.
• The dams' reservoirs had served for decades as a reliable water source for helicopters and fire crews battling blazes across the rugged, drought-prone Klamath Basin straddling the Oregon-California border.
• Removing that water meant the organisation overseeing the project had to build an entirely separate plan just to make sure regional firefighting capability would not be weakene