Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Modern forest management often engages in prescribed burns to mitigate fire risk and promote natural forest cycles. However, controlled burns can turn into wildfires by mistake. Wildfires can be classified by cause of ignition, physical properties, combustible material present, and the effect of weather on the fire. [5]
The fire caused significant damage to Oakland and the surrounding areas. The fire killed 25 people, which included emergency personnel, destroyed 2,449 homes, and caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage. [63] The response to this fire was swift, however, the fire and winds made it difficult to extinguish. [64]
Fire suppression, in combination with other human-caused environmental changes, may have resulted in unforeseen consequences for natural ecosystems. Some large wildfires in the United States have been blamed on years of fire suppression and the continuing expansion of people into fire-adapted ecosystems as well as climate change. [5]
At this time in history fire was viewed as a threat to timber, an economically important natural resource. As such, the decision was made to devote public funds to fire suppression and fire prevention efforts. For example, the Forest Fire Emergency Fund Act of 1908 permitted deficit spending in the case of emergency fire situations. [3]
A major cause of the fires was attributed to the record high temperatures and severe lack of rainfall due to a dry winter. [9] The Uttarakhand forest fires also came as India suffered one of its worst droughts in years with the government noting that over 330 million people were affected by water shortages. [10]
When a forest burns for the first time, fire intensity is usually low and flames are mostly restricted to the understory while repeated fire events have higher intensity. Forest fires are a threat to the Amazonian biodiversity [33] and jeopardize the ability of forest trees to mitigate climate change by storing carbon. When studying Amazonian ...
Haze fires can cause many kinds of damage that are local as well as transboundary. These include loss of direct and indirect forest benefits, timber, agricultural products and biodiversity. The fires also incur significant firefighting costs and carbon release to the atmosphere.
In Canada, two-thirds of all forest fires are caused by people, while lightning causes the remaining third. Despite this, lightning fires account for over 85 percent of the area burned in Canada, largely because many of the lightning-caused fires occur in remote, inaccessible areas. Currently about ninety percent of forest fires are fought.