Large Wildfires in Forests: What Can be Done?

Introduction Forest fires have received increased attention from the media, politicians, and the public in the last 20 years. Visceral pictures of towering flames on the nightly news and Internet routinely depict fire as a disaster that humans are called upon to fight by all means necessary, similar to warfare. This view of fire began in the US in the early 1900’s.1 The Great Idaho Fires of 1910 cemented this view when they burned about 3 million acres (1.2 million ha) and killed 87 people. Early fire exclusion policies were primarily designed to increase wood production from US forests since they were thought to be under stocked with trees because of fires ‘destructiveness’. Forest fires can be dangerous to people and their homes, particularly in the urban-wildland interface where homes are built adjacent to natural areas. However most forests in the US are adapted to fire and its elimination can have profound effects.2 Although several early fire ecologists such as Herman Chapman, Herbert Stoddard, Harold Weaver, and Harold Biswell were aware of fire’s importance and documented their findings in the southern and western US, their ideas were not widely accepted. When discussing fire as an ecological process a key concept is the fire regime, which describes the main characteristics of fire for a particular forest type. 3, 4 A fire regime includes information on the average and distribution of Fire frequency (number of fires in an area) Area burn...
Source: ActionBioscience - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news