Explanation of topic
Natural fires occur in many locations throughout the United States, and can happen every day. These fires mostly take place in the west. A few of my relatives live there and could possibly be in harm’s way near the fires. Even though there is a much smaller chance of a fire starting in Maryland, people would still be affected if only one natural fire were to start. Those effects can be costly to the people, and can even be a long-term effect. For example the fire could increase the risk of flooding, debris flows, and landslides; smoke and other emissions from the fire have pollutants that can cause health problems; destruction of wildlife habitats and our communities (“Wildfire hazards—a national threat,”2006). Nationally the same effects could happen at each forest fire and the government spends billions of dollars to stop the forest fires (“Wildfire hazards—a national threat,”2006). When spending billions of dollars, the government can go in debt which is not the way to go. Globally all of these things are an outcome of the natural fires in all countries. The fires need to be stopped so the people and wildlife habitats are not in danger.
Description
Natural Fires are generally uncontrollable blazes, and can be fueled by the weather, wind, and dry underbrush. In addition they can burn acres upon acres of land at a time. Wild land fires clear 4 million to 5 million acres per year, in the U.S. alone. They can move up to speeds of 14 miles per hour, which would imply the destruction, that they can produce. They can consume everything, such as trees, brush, homes, and sometimes humans (“Wildfires”, n.d.). The grizzly bear is one animal that is affected at the result of a fire, both positively and negativel...
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... in the fire. Charcoal is able to counteract some nutrient and water loss because of its absorptive properties. Overall, soils become more basic (higher pH) following fires because of acid combustion. By driving novel chemical reactions at high temperatures, fire can even alter the texture and structure of soils by affecting the clay content and the soil's porosity.
Works Cited
Data releases. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.landfire.gov/datareleases.php
Wildfire hazards—a national threat. (2006, February). Retrieved from http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3015/2006-3015.pdf http://www.coloradofirecamp.com/congressional_research/forest-fire-wildfire-effects.htm http://wildland-fires.findthedata.org/ http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfires/
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/wildfire&bears.pdf
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.
The Armenian genocide ruins Vahan Kenderian’s picture-perfect life. Vahan is the son of the richest Armenian in Turkey and before the war begins, he always has food in his belly and a roof over his head in the book Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian. Life is absolutely quintessential for Vahan, until the war starts in 1915, when he endures many deaths of his family, losses of his friends, and frightening experiences in a short amount of time. He is a prisoner of war early in the book and is starved for days. As he goes through life, he is very unlucky and experiences other deaths, not just the deaths of his family. Vahan ultimately becomes the man his family would want him to be.
Act 1 of Mr. Burns was the only act in the play that places it characters in a casual setting. It was easy to decipher the type of characters the actors were portraying in the scene. For example, the actor who played a meek character ported this by taking up as little space as she could and crouching behind objects. Also, two characters were pretty intimate with each other. They cuddled around the fire when discussing the probability of a power plant shutting down and shared soft smiles with each other. I felt that the characters were allowed to be themselves in this scene compared to the other acts. In Act 2, the characters were at work that called for them to have a professional mindset, even though they were familiar with each other. The
Fire plays a huge role in natural forests. The let it burn policy allows natural fires to burn unless, they threaten people, property, or endangered species. This policy allows the years and years of kindling that has fallen and piled up on the forest floor to burn up in smaller fires, instead of having huge devastating fire like the ones that burning for months in 1910 and 1988. When the west was first settled, forests were thinned by lumber companies that logged the trees and burned the logging debris, and by ranchers looking to increase pasture land. The last herder coming out of the mountains would set a fire to ensure good forage for the next year.
The first two acts of this film are truly inspiring because they capture the "fire" of the environmental movement. It chronologically begins by discussing the origins of conservative environmentalists, to documenting the details of successful environmental movements, and concluding by explaining the merging of civil rights with environmentalists. Ultimately, “A Fierce Green Fire “serves as a dynamic call for the continuing action of protecting and conserving our biosphere.
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.
Catching Fire: How Coooking Made us Human by Richard Wrangham is a fresh perspective on the evolution of humankind. Wrangham has made a concentrated effort to prove that humans have evolved particular adaptations, like bipedalism, due to the introduction of cooked foods into their diet. In his book, he is legitimately arguing that humans are the way they are because early on in human evolution, early man discovered fire, discovered the joys of cooked foods, and developed all sorts of fascinating traits still being utilized today.
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.
Humans have been changing the Western forests' fire system since the settlement by the Europeans and now we are experiencing the consequences of those changes. During the summer of 2002, 6.9 million acres of forests was burnt up in the West (Wildland Fires, 1). This figure is two times the ten year annual average, and it does not look like next summer will be any better (Wildfire Season, 1). Foresters have been trying to restore the forests back to their original conditions by thinning and prescribed fires but have encountered countless delays. Politicians are proposing sweeping changes in bills, which have caused great controversy, in efforts to correct the problems that the Forest Service has faced in restoration projects. Are these bills necessary or is there a better solution that politicians are overlooking?
Although fire is linked to human life, as it is essential for survival, not only its use for food, security and warmth, particularly in the extreme cold weather
Forest fires kill many animals and usually destroy a large amount of land. Prescribed burns seem like they would be the best idea, but are they? Their claim to fame is to clear out land in order to decrease the burning space for when an actual forest fire occurs. Yet this may seem like a brilliant idea, but one must look at the negative aspects of controlled burnings. People might have a change of heart when they realize the damages and effects of such an interesting act. Keep in mind that not only is your health involved but even such things as the inconvenience of dealing with a smoky town. It is important to understand that prescribed burns cause severe health problems especially to firefighters; these are concerning carbon monoxide poisoning, visibility issues and health risks that will affect the future.
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.
In addition to wildfires skyrocketing in number, American firefighters are also now burdened with the responsibility of protecting 47 million inhabited homes in high fire risk areas because the construction of homes within the “wildland urban interface” continues to expand . Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, inaction towards better wildfire policy and budget allocation will leave Congress fiddling while the DOI and USFS are helpless to save millions of acres of both forest and homes from ashes. Reforming federal wildlife policy with a disaster relief cap will be a step in the right direction towards protecting forest health, communities and public safety in a future of escalating natural disasters.