Essay: Forest Fire

Fire is an inevitable part of nature. As long there has been life there has been fire. Adding man to the picture only increased fire. Since man began building civilizations fire has been working against them. One part of fire that hasn't changed is forest fires. There will always be forests to burn. In recent years man has came up with ways not only to prevent forest fires but to battle them.

Forest always burn, they always have and always will. It is just a cycle of nature. Fires vary in intensity. Intensity is how hot a fire burns. A low intensity fire has flames less than 3ft, a moderate fire has flames 3-10ft, a high intensity fire has flames 10-30ft, and a extreme fire has flames greater than 30ft. Often extreme fire turn into fire storms. The intensity can change based on the amount, material, and moisture content of the fire. So basically dry bark, leaves and small branches make perfect kindling. There is also different kinds of forest fires. A common type is a ground fire. These fires just burn ground debree like leaves and bark. Another type of fire a crown fire. These fires are less common but they completely wipe out forests. Since people have been building cities the forests have become more dense. We are reducing the forest area but trying to conserve the trees. Combine this with fire prevention methods and you get today's forest fires. They now burn less often, but because of the increase in tree density and the debrie being allowed to build up the fires are more devastating. This makes Wild fire, which like the names implies the fire is next to impossible to control.(Dickman)

Now days there is more tools to help firemen to put out forest fires than most of us would know what to do with. They have a variety of different pumps just to get the water there. Even the fire trucks are different. A forest truck is designed to go off road and make it to the scene of the fire. There is no hydrants out in the middle of the woods so the trucks have to carry all the water with them. For smaller fires fireman carry hand powered backpack pumps. The most common tool on forest fires is a good shovel and an axe. Sometimes on large fires, departments will bring in bulldozers to establish a fire ring. Now they have modern technology that will allow you to check the greenness of a forest and predict possible fire spots.(Fire Equipment Specs)

Fires have been burning for millions of years. The dinosaurs had to deal with fire, but they had nobody to come put them out for them. A fire can wreak mass destruction, but it can rejuvenate and regenerate a forest too. They can wipe out sick and dying trees and they can can get rid of bugs that can kill trees. Man totally changed the burn cycle though. They did this through increasing the amount of trees per acre and fire prevention methods. You would think that fire prevention would be helpful and it is to a degree, but putting out all small little fires that start allows for the kindling to build up creating a time bomb. That means that eventually a fire will start and it will catch all the tinder create a massive and uncontrollable fire storm. In 1871 the Wisconsin fire burned up 1.2 million acres and killed 1182 people. That pales in comparison to the Big Blow Up. In 1910 a massive fire tore through Washington, Idaho, And Montana burning up over 3 million acres! Another major fire was the South Canyon Fire. It took the lives of 14 firemen which lead to advances in fire fighting technology and weather predictions.(foresty.about.com)

Forest fires are a unpredictable, rebellious force of nature. Fire in any form is a dangerous force, but a forest fire is a massive force to reckon with. It destroys anything in its path. Unlike a computer or a car, there is no manual saying how to fight a fire, just guidelines. No matter how many tools we make, fire will never be completely controllable.