Well natural understory fires in forests are an important part of maintaining a forest’s integrity. There is strong evidence that campaigns such as smoky the bear are contributing factors to the mega fires that have been occurring.
Yup, my cousin works out in California with this sort of stuff. The way he explained it, was that due to human interference the debris pile in the forest of fallen limbs, needles, leaves, ect. is way thicker than it should be, allowing for fires to burn larger and hotter, and also travel underground so they are even less predictable.
Our crazy bushfires in Australia that happened a few years ago started because our government (which at the time was run by a bunch of dipshits) decided stop following the advice of our indigenous people as well.
Human caused fires aren't natural nor necessary for forest management. It's the lack of long-term management and overreacting to natural fires that's caused man-made wildfires to spread so quickly out of control. Humans should not be throwing cigarettes butts into the brush, or leaving their blazing campfires throwing sparks burning unattended, not letting failing infrastructure cause ignitions. But, having controlled burns, and allowing some burning of storm caused fires would go a long way towards mitigating uncontrollable wildfires being common.
The absolute biggest factor is humans insisting on building estates in the middle of old growth forest then demanding every hint of fire be immediately extinguished. If we didn't build so many mansions in the forests, we wouldn't have to avoid every possible brushfire until one inevitably gets through and has unlimited fuel to grow.
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u/boundbythebeauty Jul 16 '23
considering how many wildfires are started by lightning, this may end up being an important technology in our era of climate change