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A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. [1][2] Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire (in Australia), desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, prairie fire, vegetation fire, or veld ...
Wildfires can happen in many places in the United States, especially during droughts, but are most common in the Western United States and Florida. [3] They may be triggered naturally, most commonly by lightning, or by human activity like unextinguished smoking materials, faulty electrical equipment, overheating automobiles, or arson.
For most of the 20th century, any form of wildland fire, whether it was naturally caused or otherwise, was quickly suppressed for fear of uncontrollable and destructive conflagrations such as the Peshtigo Fire in 1871 and the Great Fire of 1910. In the 1960s, policies governing wildfire suppression changed due to ecological studies that ...
“The distance from the wildfire smoke is important, as levels will lessen according to distance,” he says. “However, the particulate matter contained within wildfire smoke can travel ...
Fire ecology. Fire ecology is a scientific discipline concerned with the effects of fire on natural ecosystems. [1] Many ecosystems, particularly prairie, savanna, chaparral and coniferous forests, have evolved with fire as an essential contributor to habitat vitality and renewal. [2] Many plant species in fire-affected environments use fire to ...
Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts depend on many factors such as the available fuel, the local atmospheric conditions, the features of the terrain, and the size of the wildfire. Because of this wildfire suppression in wild land areas usually requires different techniques ...
A controlled or prescribed (Rx) burn is the practice of intentionally setting a fire to change the assemblage of vegetation and decaying material in a landscape. The purpose could be for forest management, ecological restoration, land clearing or wildfire fuel management. A controlled burn may also refer to the intentional burning of slash and ...
The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural ...