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The effect of wildfires
Impact of wildfires essay
Impact of wildfires essay
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Have you ever thought about wildland fires? Maybe what caused them or how they can be prevented? In the forest service today fire is a big problem. Yes it is true fire can be good for the forest, all the under burden and dead trees is just fuel for a really big fire which is not good. So controlled burning is good for the forest, however these fires are becoming really expensive. Who do you think pays for the water, gas, and the people to put these fires out? The cost on fire suppression by the United States forest service was more than a billion dollars last year. There is always two sides to an issue. Simply don’t do anything and hope that big fires do not occur and destroy the forest, or you can manage it and slow it down. Either way you are spending money, Plans like selective logging and clearing underburden are slowing the issue and are managing it, however it still costs money. Especially when people’s home or life’s are in danger. By not doing anything, and just letting the forest grow and grow causes large fuel loadings, and proved to be more …show more content…
California alone was estimated at “2 billion” in funds during wildland season according to Arun Malik. In the forest service they have been managing fire for over 100 years. Spending tons and tons of money managing the forest every year. Managing the forest is great, it minimizes the outcome. It will not stop the fire entirely, however it will prevent mass destruction of the forest, and prevent communities and peoples property from getting destroyed. Close to 3,500 people caused wildland fires in the past 10 years. Which is understandable, most wild fires are caused by people, and people are not going to change, there is always going to be that one person that throws the match or lighter on the ground and walks away. Like I was saying fires are getting expensive and is a big issue in forestry
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.
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.
Prescribed fire is a controlled burn of an area done by a team of experienced or educated people in a grassland or forested area. This type of burn is intended to help the health of plant and animal species and restore them to their native state. When certain areas that need to be burned so often do not get burned, they can be a hazard to the ecosystem in which it presides. A forest can get over grown and thick which will create more fuel for a wildfire that can destroy a forest community. In grassland a controlled burn, or prescribed burn, can help eliminate invasive species that can take over grasslands that are harmful to the more desirable plants. This type of fire can be seen as harmful and a disaster by many people, but it has great benefits on the areas in which it is done.
The City of Detroit, Michigan, seems to be a city on the decline in America. Job prospects some of the lowest in the country and one of the only cities to be shrinking, rather than growing. There are a lot of problems Detroit is facing, one of them is there incidence rate for fires. Detroit is the number one city in America for house fires, not to mention their high rate of fires in the many vacant buildings throughout the city. There are many socioeconomic factors with the city that make the incident rates rise, and response less effective.
Malibu has been burning ever since it’s been known to mankind. The geographic condition along with fierce Santa Ana wind has made it the perfect burning zone. Yosemite is prone to fire because of its natural condition but not to the extent like Malibu. Malibu has been inhabited for more than a century. Malibu is a place where people went to settle down because of the natural beauty. Mountains along with pacific shoreline are the perfect dream location for many reality businesses. All these natural beauties and the addition of hot and dry weather came with a dangerous problem; which is nothing but fire: a fire which is intensified exponentially by the wind of Santa Ana. In his book Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis explained that the fire hasn’t slowed down the population growth or building new homes in Malibu.
Each year, 55,000 acres of Northwest forest land succumb to chainsaws to feed the ever-increasing foreign and domestic demands for lumber (Time 21). To profitably satisfy these demands, old-growth trees, those of two hundred years or more, are sought by Northwest logging companies. At this rate, environmentalists believe the unique ecosystem created by old-growth forests is in danger of being destroyed. To protect the old-growth forests and the plants and animals found there, a reduction must be made in the amount of old-growth trees logged each year. Yet reducing the amount of logging in the Pacific Northwest decreases the current number of jobs involved in harvesting the forests and the revenue received by both the companies and the government for their processed logs. To fully understand the current conflict over the old-growth forests, we must look at what each side stands to lose and then suggest a possible balanced sol...
Prescribed fires are used to clean up the dead plants that will produce harmful fuels after a wildfire. The problem with these fires are even though these fires are supposed to be controlled, they can get out of hand. May 20, 2016, a prescribed fire in Minnesota escaped and burned more than what was planned and continued unstopped for a few days. Firefighters finally were able to put a stop to it. This has increased in the United States quite a bit this year. The acres burned by escaped fires are forty-six percent above normal. Unlike what many think, prescribed fires are not always watched. Sometimes, they will be left for a couple days with no one checking on them. How do they expect to keep them controlled when no one wants to control them?
Forest fires have ravaged Northern California, AKA wine country. The fires have wiped out 220,000 acres of land and the destruction can cost around 3-6 billion dollars. The issue, however, is not only in the money to repair but in the money lost due to loss of land and businesses. There are fewer producers of wine so therefore the prices for wine brands will increase due to a lack of supply and cause cost-pull inflation, when prices increase and supply drops so costs, such as wages and raw materials and decreased aggregate supply. Currently, short-run aggregate supply, the total production of goods and services available in an economy at different price levels while some resources to produce are fixed, is shifting to the left as prices rise
As people of the twenty-first century, we are all too familiar with the frequent occurrence of wildfires in our nation’s forests. Each year millions of acres of woodlands are destroyed in brutal scorches. It has been estimated that 190 million acres of rangelands in the United States are highly susceptible to catastrophic fires (www.doi.gov/initiatives/forest.html.). About a third of these high-risk forests are located in California (www.sfgate.com). These uncontrollable blazes not only consume our beautiful forests but also the wildlife, our homes and often the lives of those who fight the wildfires. The frequency of these devastating fires has been increasing over the years. In fact, in the years 2000 and 2002, it has been reported that the United States has faced its worst two years in fifty years for mass destruction fires (www.doi.gov/initiatives/forest.html.). The increased natural fuels buildup coupled with droughts have been a prevailing factor in contributing to our wildfires and unhealthy forests (www.blm.gov/nhp/news/releases/pages/2004/pr040303_forests.html). Due to the severity of these wildfires, several regulations and guidelines have been implemented to save our forests. In fact, the President himself has devised a plan in order to restore our forests and prevent further destruction of our woodlands.
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?
I’ve long been familiar with the concept of coal mines, but a common occurrence I was unfamiliar with previous to this class was the concept of coal mine fires, but it is a huge problem, both economically and environmentally.
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.