By Isabella Liu Most people think of wildfires as potent, inherently negative natural disasters, causing massive forests to burn to the ground and widespread destruction courtesy of Mother Nature. However, wildfires are actually not a category of natural disasters. In fact, wildfires would be quite rare without humans, since 90% of wildfires are man-made. However, none of that matters when a fire starts, since the damage is too great--burning 4 to five million acres of land per year and consuming everything from vegetation to whole buildings. There are four main components to starting a wildfire:
When you think about it, a wildfire has never started in the middle of winter in the heart of Canada. It’s cold and wet in this time of year, which is exactly the opposite type of air needed to start a wildfire: hot and dry. The air acts as both the oxygen and heat source, and creates a domino effect leading to a ravaging wildfire. The dryness crumbles the leaves of a forest into bone-dry flammable items, while the heat only encourages and provokes the flammability. Fuel is what keeps the fire going, of course. Anything from trees to grass to underbrush allow the flames to burn. Unlike a campfire, where a ring of stones or something fire resistant encircle the fire and keep it contained, the surrounding vegetation a wildfire’s starting location helps it expand and destroy. This very factor is why firefighters will cut down the trees and bushes near a wildfire; without any fuel to burn, the fire will die. The need of wind seems pretty contradictory to a heat source, but apart from dried up leaves and bushes, wind is also, to some extent, a source of fuel. Continuing with the campfire metaphor, the fire grows by being fanned, similar to the air fanning the wildfire. The breeze carry small bits and pieces of burning embers, spreading the fire and starting up more fires elsewhere. It is only rarely that a wildfire would start from something as natural as the sun’s rays; most commonly, they are created by careless mistakes that we make. Something as small as dropping a lit cigarette on a hot, sunny day, or playing with a magnifying glass and a dead leaf can lead to millions of burnt acres of land. It goes without saying that we don’t want hundreds on thousands of acres of land, including our own communities, engulfed in bright orange flames; all that needs to be done to avoid that is to clean up after yourself. Keep your cigarettes in the trash can, leave the magnifying glasses to Sherlock. Really, it’s that simple. CITATIONSSaner, Emine. “How Do You Stop a Wildfire?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 May 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2016/may/09/wildfire-alberta-canada.
“Wildfires Information and Facts.” Learn More About Wildfires, National Geographic, 23 Oct. 2017, www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfires/.
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