Why was there an increase in forest fires in the last 100 years?

Question

Why was there an increase in forest fires in the last 100 years?

Answer 1

Here in Norway, the large majority of forest fires are started by people. Two suggestions: More people are out in the nature (good thing!) and more people loose respect for nature (bad thing!).

Answer 2

This is because forest produce many things that can increase economies of the certain country. Eventhough this good for the country but this is bad for all of us. This is because the fire may cause an air pollution which is very bad for us.

       This is because the animals and the plants number population is decreasing. Other than that, the animal species that live in the forest will be endangered and finally extinct. The fire in the forest start when a a smoker throw his or her cigarettes to the forest and the fire that still in the cigarettes will burn the forest.

       There are many more effects for this kind of problem and one of it is the ozon layer is getting thinner. That is why the weather is getting hotter and hotter and my cause the destruction of the Earth. Other one is,the oxygen is decreasing and carbon dioxide  is increasing and may cause the extinction of humanity.

       To overcome this problem,there are many ways to overcome this problem. One of it is,deforestation. Others are,  campain, don't throw something away just like that and lastly plant a plant at your home. These are example of ways to overcome the problem. To found out more, log on to www.nationalgeografi.com. THANK YOU...

Answer 3

Over the last 100 years, the wildfire policy has been one of aggressive firefighting. So because almost every wildfire in the last 100 years had been fought and stopped sooner than its "natural" fire cycle would have ended, an unnatural fuel load has built up in our national forests.

Had wildfires been allowed to do what they normally would have, the undergrowth and dead/dying wood & brush would have been thinned out by periodic fires - which most likely would have been low-lying fires that crawled along the ground, and on rare occasions would have reached the canopy of the trees.

Now however, with the huge fuel load in our national forests, wildfires almost immediately become "crown fires" that climb into the canopies of the forests, and race from tree to tree - destroying everything in its path. To add even more fuel to the fire is the huge infestation of bark beetles which has literally killed 30% to 50% of the trees in many of the forests here in the west. These trees could have been harvested and used for a beneficial purpose as they died, however too many radicals have filed lawsuit after lawsuit to prohibit any form of logging in many of the national forests. So instead of being harvested, these millions of dead trees stand alongside live trees, waiting like stockpiles of gasoline to cause the next wildfire in the area to explode into a raging inferno.

The catastrophic wildfires of today are pretty much a direct consequence of the aggressive firefighting policy of the past 100 years. We're just reaping what's been sewed.

How can the severity of wildfires be lessened? By allowing SELECTIVE logging - removal of dead and disease trees, as well as thinning out stands of trees that are growing too tightly together - NOT CLEAR-CUT LOGGING, but selective harvesting. It has been proven that areas of forest that have been selectively logged have slower moving, and low lying fires in them, instead of the crown-fires that are so prevalent today.

And remember: Trees are a renewable resource. Logging companies typically cut one down, and plant several more in its place so that they'll have something else to cut down in the future. It makes good business sense.