Do you find this ironic about brush/forest fires?

Question

The ammount of money spent on fighting forest fires today has increased almost exponentialy form the past. SO has the intensity of fires! Fires didn't used to completely demolish entire forests like they do today, they would just burn small trees and bushes. Now since people spend so much time and effort trying to PREVENT fires, they happen less often, but instead of nautral fires they become super-fires!

Why don't they let them burn nautrally?

If it's away from population, what harm could it do?

Answer 1

When I first met my husband, he was a helicopter mechanic.  He traveled the Western United States with the helicopter.  The Chinook helicopter was either logging, or putting out forest fires.

To "date" my husband to be, I too had to go on the road, and travel with the helicopter and crew.  So I spent a lot of time at fire camps, and lumber camps with the helicopter and crew.  I spoke with a LOT of people who were on the front lines of fighting fire, and in the loggin industry.  

It was quiet a wonderful, and educational experience for me.  

You are completely correct about everything you have stated thus far.  Just a couple of fact you missed.  First there are TWICE as many trees in the U.S. as there were when the Civil War broke out.  Trees are a good cash crop, so lots of forests planted.

Before the Eruopeans came and settled on the U.S., there were of course the Indians.  The Indians started (on purpose) forest fires.  Several reasons.  It drove game in a direction they wanted, and made it easy to kill.  It left little firewood or shelter for a rival tribe, and was a good war tactic.  It keep the plains clear of trees, and provided more fodder, and easier hunting for buffalo.  It was especially important once they had horse herds they also had to keep fed.

Last but not least, for any of the forest dwelling tribes, they of course used firewood as their main source of heat, and cooking (some tribes took advantage of easy access coal seams).  This ment a daily gathering of low branches, and deadfalls.  Indians were great at keeping the fuel from building up to outrageous levels and causing devastating fires.

I saw first hand the devastation caused by fires in forests where humans were not allowed to gather wood, and it had been building up to outrageous levels for years.

One of the time I got back home from spending time at a firecamp, with hubby to be, I got out the ladder.  We have a row of evergreen trees (pines) planted down our driveway.  The lowest branches were all completely dead.  Many of those dead branches hung over the roof of our house.  I cut all of the dead branches off the trees 20-25 feet up.  The trunks of trees can take fires quiet well...but when the fire travels up dead branches, and the fire begins "crowning" and creating its own weather (like a fire tornado) there's almost no hope.

I learned a lot at fire camps.  I brought that knowledge home and used it to make our farm in Washington safer.  I'll also never build another home, or have a house re-roofed that doesn't have a metal roof put on it.....even in the rainy Pacific Northwest.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Been there, done that, seen the devastation of the fires, and even have the t-shirts.

P.S.  I currently live in Idaho.  Last summer our house was surrounded in three directions by range fires (this is sage brush desert area).  The largest fires in the U.S. last year burned extremely close to my home.  Why?  Because the enviromentalist won, and got the cattle and sheep kick off much of the rangeland, to "save the sage grouse" because the sheep and cattle destroyed their habitat, and ate too much.  Well of course the dead grasses, as such built up for several years.....we now have a COMPLETELY barren landscape you can fly over in an airplane at 100 mph for over one hour......!!!!!!!!!  Over one million acres of the sage gouse habbitat is completely barren, and sterile.  The thin layer of soil is washing away in the rain.  

Perhaps the "enviromentalist" should have brought back the herds of millions of buffalo to the sage lands, when they kicked the cattle and sheep out.  The buffalo would have eaten the fodder and the sage grouse would still have habitat.

People really do not understand what is natural, and needs to be done to maintain healthy forests.

Before the humans were here, we had mamoths, and giant ground sloths to help manage forests.  Forests NEED to be trimmed, and have the "fuel" harvested.

Answer 2

The cost has gone up not only because of the amount of fires fought, but the rise in equipment

cost, gasoline prices, and supplies.  

The dry climate is, in some areas, to blame for the intensity of the fires.  The worry over fighting these fires in Forrest has been proven with valid reasoning.  Housing areas are stretching closer and closer to the "edge" of

Forrest lines.  These fires do enter housing areas and destroy homes, as well as loosening

soil that was once held together by the roots of trees.  This can cause mud slides during rainy seasons, as well smoke damage to people, pets, and wildlife.  This is why prevention, and

putting out even the smallest fire is of the up most importance.

Answer 3

you haven't done much in the form of research on forest fires there have been so very deadly ones over the past hundred years or so look up the history on Northern Ontario forest fires from the 20's and 30's entire towns were burned out thousands on acres of land burned,the fires did not burn out they ran into huge lake shores or burned till a major rain fall came even over the winter months fires were known to burn under ground and reemerge in the spring and start over.Look into US prairie fires in the same time period and see how devastating they were