Review of Literature
I. Introduction- Forest Fires
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, Wildfire means “a sweeping and destructive conflagration esp. in a wilderness or a rural area.” Also according to the same dictionary, wilderness means “a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings.” Forest Fires happen when there is a drought because branches and twigs die and dry out creating plenty of fuel for a fire. According to the NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) there are about 105,534 wildfires that occur each year.
Wildfires occur when the climate is moist making trees and shrubs ready to grow and when a dry, hot period occurs a wildfire can occur. Wildfires mostly occur in highly vegetated areas like Australia, Western Cape of South Africa and in the dry forests and grasslands of North America and Europe. They also happen in the United States, Indonesia, and Australia every few years. Wildfires in the forests and grasslands of North America happen in the summer, fall, and winter during dry periods when it’s windy and there is a lot of fuel for fire. When they happen in summer, fall, and winter it is called Wildfire Season. Western U.S. fires happen to be more dramatic during summer and fall seasons while Southern fires are hardest to fight in late winter and early spring seasons when fallen branches, leaves, and other material dry out and become highly flammable. According to Steve Nix of About.com he states, “" The Wildland urban interface" is a growing zone of transition between developing areas and undeveloped wildland. It makes fire protection a major concern for state and federal government. Most of the world’s worst wildfires have occurred in Australia and The United States of America.
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...d fight the Yellowstone Fire. In 1989, more than 2,600,000 people came to Yellowstone National Park that year, the highest annual visitation rate of the 1980s.
There is a rule that if there is a fire they can let it put it out as long as it’s not hurting anyone. Some people think they let it burn to long and they should of put it out quicker. This fire burned 1.2 million acres of land.
My sources were: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/booming/lessons-from-the-yellowstone-fires-of-1988.html?_r=1&
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wildlandfire.htm
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/special-reports/yellowstone_fires/article_e253b09a-2dc1-5107-811f-1ebf5d6c150c.html
http://forestry.about.com/b/2013/06/24/forest-fire-basics-and-the-behavior-of-forest-fires.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fire/figh_nf.html
http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
It is so sad to see the horror of forest fires and how they corrupt our beautiful land. So much damage comes out of what started so small. At least 603 square miles of land were burned in the early stages of the Arizona fire only a couple of years ago (BBC 2). In a Colorado fire 2.3 million acres had been burned (BBC 3). That land could have been saved if the use of prescribed burns had been in the area.
Malibu and Yosemite share similar ecosystem, which encourages wildfires and periodic firestorms. In his book Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis argues that Malibu should burn because wildfires are a part of its history. To illustrate his point, he relates numerous historical events from the first settlement of the region to modern days. Despite the high frequency of wildfires in Malibu, humans have continued to settle there in droves. Those settlers have fought the fires, which has done nothing but augment their intensity. Unlike Malibu, with its populated areas that have been damaged by wildfires, Yosemite benefits greatly from wildfires. Yosemite’s ecosystem has evolved with wildfires; indeed, without wildfires, Yosemite would lose its uniqueness. Also, Yosemite is not as heavily populated as Malibu, so fires in Yosemite would not affect humans to the same degree that they do in Malibu.
With the 10:00 a.m. policy any fire that breaks out was to be under control by 10:00 a.m. the following day. This policy was based on the theories about forest management in the plantation forests of Europe. But ecologists have later discovered that burning is essential for the preservation of many natural forest communities. For example the cone of the jack pine and the lodgepile pine will not release seeds unless they are exposed to the intense heat of a forest fire. Fire also helps animals by allowing new vegetation to grow on the cleared soil.
Plants that grow in the vast arid and semi-arid regions of Australia are prone to fires simply because of the desert climate they grow in. High temperatures, low fuel moisture contents, little humidity and drying winds that sweep across the landscape encourage small patches of plants to burst into flames.
Robbins, Jim. Last Refuge: The Environmental Showdown in Yellowstone and the American West. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
The United States Department of agriculture Forest Service investigation report on the thirty mile fire.
Wildfires started as an annual and seasonal occurrence in the south western region of California since the early 1930’s in part because of the hot dry summers and the hot dry turbulent Santa Ana winds that blow in from the desert during the fall months. Now it has become a yearlong event (Mckay, 2010). These conditions greatly contribute to the “fire season” throughout this area. This set of circumstances in conjunction with downed power lines and humans that ignited fires took place in October of 2007. This led to a series of fires that burned more than 500,000 acres, destroyed 1,500 homes, killed 9, injured 85, and forced the successful evacuation of around 500,000 people out of harm’s way.
Policies regarding the handling of wildland fires continue to change and evolve as new information is learned each fire season. Attitudes have changed between complete wildland fire suppression to no suppression at all. We now seem to have reached a balance between the two schools of thought and fall somewhere in the middle.
...rting again. The fire itself was seen for miles and the heat was so intense that there was “hardly a building within a one block radius that was not scorched” (Reporter Front Page). Extinguished fire brands were found in all parts of the Eastern section of the city. Some brands were even found in Lakeside Park. The force of the gas explosions in the garage blew debris from E 2nd and Marr to half way down Ellis St. This shows just how large the fire actually was.
However, there was one safe haven, and that was Yellowstone National Park that was established in 1872. In the year 1916 the National Parks Service started to eliminate all predators in Yellowstone National Park, which meant killing 136 wolves, 13,000 coyotes, and every single mountain lion. By 1939 this prog...
Every year, over nine million hikers and adventure seekers travel to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park making it the most visited national park in the United States. There are abundant reasons for this, but many popular reasons include over 150 hiking trails extending over 850 miles, a large portion of the Appalachian Trail, sightseeing, fishing, horseback riding, and bicycling. The park houses roughly ten thousand species of plants and animals with an estimated 90,000 undocumented species likely possible to be present. It is clear why there was a pressing interest in making all this land into a national park. My research was started by asking the question; how did the transformation of tourism due to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park affect surrounding cities such as Gatlinburg and Sevier County, and in return, its effect on the popularity of the park?
Fires kill plants and trees leaving wildlife without homes and food. Large fires cause lots of smoke and air pollution.
Prescribed fires are a well debated topic. While many people support them because they "help prevent" more wildfires, and they are "controlled," I see from a different point of view. There's a reason most building don't allow smoking within a certain distance of the building. Many people don't like it and it can damage their health. Same thing with prescribed fires. They add more pollution to the air we breathe. I know a lot of people support these kinds of fires because the help control fuels, but there are other ways.
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
The Forest fire is occurring very frequently nowadays, reasons for it are a heavy increase in global warming and an increase in temperature.