Who and why deliberately sets fire to forests in the USA: the experience of an immigrant

Being a huge country, the United States is striking in its diversity of nature and climatic zones. In Hawaii, eternal summer, while Alaska most of the year under snow and ice. Arid and sun-scorching Arizona is fundamentally different from the state of Washington, where cloudiness and rain can bother for weeks. The author of the channel talks about this. “Traveling while driving and on foot” on Yandex.Zen.

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And even within the same state, weather conditions vary greatly. Take California. On the Pacific coast, a wet breeze, coolness and fog. A dozen or two kilometers inland, and you do not know where to escape from the sizzling heat. But it is worth to climb the mountains, and you will need all the clothes that are in your luggage, and at the same time.

Flora and fauna also change beyond recognition. Half an hour ago you were surrounded by cacti, and now you admire tall pine trees near the ski slopes. From the rookeries of fur seals are not so far to snakes and turtles, which will soon be replaced by squirrels and deer.

And, of course, in the United States there are a lot of forests, mostly coniferous. And where is the forest, there are fires.

Of varying strength, area and duration, they rage continuously. Something constantly burns somewhere, smolders or blazes. Sometimes the situation becomes catastrophic. Vast areas are burned out along with the animals living there, the fire gets close to the highway, destroys houses.

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By carefully studying natural fires, people are improving methods of dealing with them. It turned out that the main causes of fires are lightning and the human factor. The sooner you begin to extinguish, the more chances to defeat the fire element. And for this, a fire should be noticed in time.

For this purpose, observation towers were built in the mid-twentieth century. They are located on tops with a good 360 degree view. To get to them, most often, it is possible through a broken-down primer or hiking trail.

During a fire hazard, an employee is on duty in the cockpit. His work shift lasts several days. In addition to the necessary equipment, the cabin has a simple atmosphere and household items. It happens that everyone is allowed inside, and the attendant is happy to share with visitors the details of his work.

During hiking in the mountains, I was lucky enough to repeatedly visit such places and listen to many interesting stories from the life of firefighters. I was surprised to learn that forest fires are not only spontaneous, but also man-made. It's not about a forgotten bonfire or an abandoned cigarette butt.

There are so-called “prescribed” arsons to prevent more severe fires. Here's how it works. Periodically in the forest, under large trees, a dense undergrowth grows from bushes and young trees. This undergrowth, along with dry grass, becomes an ideal combustible material. If you do not clean it, then the fire, which sooner or later necessarily breaks out, will be terrible and will not spare anything around.

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Manual removal of the lower, fire hazardous forest level is not possible. For this, it will be necessary to mobilize half of the country's population to clear forests. And then it was decided to burn out the undergrowth.

In practice, it looks like this. Firefighters dressed in fireproof suits and armed with gas burners line up the chain. Slowly moving through the agreed territory, observing safety measures, they set fire to the bush.

"Feeding" fire everything superfluous, firefighters do not allow it to spread to large trees. Fire only casually passes along the lower part of the trunks without causing harm.

But this is not all the benefits of prescribed fires. There are pine trees, the cones of which open and release the seeds solely under the influence of heat from the flame. Of course, it should not be so strong as to burn down the pine trees along with their cones and seeds. A light fire is what you need.

Original column published on the blog. “Traveling while driving and on foot” on Yandex.Zen

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