Here Are the Pros of Forest Fires

• Forest fires help to kill disease.
• It provides nutrients for new generations of growth.
• It refreshes the habitat zones.
• Low intensity fires don’t usually harm trees.
• A forest fire sets up the potential for soil erosion to occur.
• Forest fires always bring death in some form.

Fire removes low-growing underbrush, cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight, and nourishes the soil. Reducing this competition for nutrients allows established trees to grow stronger and healthier. History teaches us that hundreds of years ago forests had fewer, yet larger, healthier trees.

Wildfires increase the potential for flooding, debris flows, and landslides. Smoke and other emissions contain pollutants that can cause significant health problems.

It plays a key role in shaping ecosystems by serving as an agent of renewal and change. But fire can be deadly, destroying homes, wildlife habitat and timber, and polluting the air with emissions harmful to human health. Fire also releases carbon dioxide—a key greenhouse gas—into the atmosphere.

There are a few reasons why wildfires are so devastating. First, they are incredibly hard to contain. By that time, the forest fires have grown to a state where they are no longer controlled. Their sheer size makes them very hard to control, even with attacks from the ground, the air, and specialized vehicles.

“Seawater puts out fire just as well as fresh water, and although seawater is tougher on pump equipment than fresh water, proper maintenance and flushing of the systems would limit their corrosive properties on our pumps,” Capt. Larry Kurtz of the Fire Authority told Honk in an email.

Ocean water can also be used to fight fires but because salt is corrosive, they have to wash out the aircraft with fresh water afterward, he said. High winds can render firefighting aircraft ineffective either because the water will miss its target or because it’s unsafe to fly, he said.

Once it’s started, a wildfire can spread due to the wind, being on a slope or because of fuel. “That’s because it’s pre-heating the fuel above it. So if a fire is going up a mountain it will go very fast.” Fuel includes everything from trees, underbrush and dry grassy fields to homes.

Firefighters may also employ controlled burning, creating backfires, to stop a wildfire. This method involves fighting fire with fire. These prescribed—and controlled—fires remove undergrowth, brush, and litter from a forest, depriving an otherwise raging wildfire of fuel.

A fire described as “going” or “out of control” is one where parts of its perimeter are burning and have the potential to spread into unburnt areas. The flames of these subside quickly, so the majority of a fire’s interior consists of blackened area where only heavy fuels such as logs and branches continue to burn.

Preventing wildfires

1. Report unattended fires.
2. Extinguish fire pits and campfires when done.
3. Don’t throw lit cigarettes out of your moving car.
4. Use caution when using flammable liquids.
5. Pay attention to local ordinances for trash burning.
6. Only use fireworks in clear areas with no woods nearby.

These include maintaining a wide vegetation-free zone around properties, using fire-resistant building materials and keeping gutters and decking free of burnable debris.

Vegetation cleared from forests to lessen the risk of wildfire, such as these branches, can yield renewable energy – a potential source of revenue to help prevent fires. There’s a largely untapped economic opportunity in the forest. Reducing the risk of fire often involves removing vegetation that can fuel fires.

Wildfires have a rapid forward rate of spread (FROS) when burning through dense uninterrupted fuels. They can move as fast as 10.8 kilometres per hour (6.7 mph) in forests and 22 kilometres per hour (14 mph) in grasslands.

Nearly 85 percent* of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson. Lightning is one of the two natural causes of fires.

U.S. wildfire seasons now last an average 76 days longer than in the 1970s and 1980s. Before 1986, a wildfire was contained on average in less than eight days. Since then, the average wildfire has burned for 37 days.

Such areas are extremely dangerous during a forest fire. Flames also tend to travel uphill, and running uphill will slow you down anyway. Can you — or should you even attempt to — outrun a forest fire? The short answer is that a wall of flame can move at 20 mph or faster and easily overtake a runner.

The 1871 Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin The blaze started on October 8 1871 and burned around 1.2 million acres. At least 1 152 people were killed, making this the worst fire that claimed more lives than any of the other wildfires in US history.

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California’s wildfire hell: how 2020 became the state’s worst ever fire season. It was the state’s worst wildfire season on record. By the end of it, the flames had killed 31 people, destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 buildings and burned a staggering 4.1m acres.

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The lowest recorded cool flame temperatures are between 200 and 300°C; the Wikipedia page references n-butyl acetate as 225°C. You can read a lot more about cool flames on that page.

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