This year has been a particularly bad one for fire blight on Pear and Apple trees.  Fire blight is a bacterial disease that affects plants in the Rosaceae family, causing a characteristic blackened wilting of leaves and twigs. This family of plants is also popular for its landscape value, both for flowers and fruit production. Pear, Cherry, Rose, Apple, Serviceberry, Cotoneaster, Hawthorn are just a few trees and shrubs that are very familiar to us. Have you noticed a profusion of dead, blackened leaves in your neighborhood? In your trees?