Alberta battles The Beast, a fire that creates its own weather and causes green trees to explode

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  • @davduf
    Davduf CC BY-NC-SA
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    @simplicissimus
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    Alberta battles The Beast, a fire that creates its own weather and causes green trees to explode | Edmonton Journal
    ▻http://edmontonjournal.com/news/insight/alberta-battles-the-beast-a-fire-that-creates-its-own-weather-and-c
    ▻http://wpmedia.edmontonjournal.com/2016/05/wildfires-continue-burning-in-and-around-fort-mcmurray-alta

    University of Alberta wildfire specialist Mike Flannigan.

    Three factors drive boreal forest fires, Flannigan says: ignition, weather and fuel.

    About two thirds of fires are ignited by lightning strikes. Most of the worst fires come from lightning strikes in remote areas, which limits a rapid response. Human activity causes other fires but efforts are being made to limit this destruction with public education, fires bans and visitation bans on high-risk areas.

    Warm weather also increases fire risk, an issue that is becoming more pronounced due to climate change, which has increased the length of the fire season in Alberta by about a month. Warmer temperatures bring more lightning, and the hotter it gets, the more moisture is readily sucked up into the atmosphere, leaving the woods and deadfall drier and more likely to ignite.

    #fortmcmoney

    Davduf CC BY-NC-SA
    • @simplicissimus
      Simplicissimus

      Forest conditions are changing, in part due to climate change, but also as a result of (firefighting) practices, probably the largest of which has been interrupting the natural cycle of fires. — Peter Fuglem
      […]
      The government is making some progress in dealing with fuel for fires. Part of the problem here springs from our success in quickly putting out most wildfires. The lack of fire has prevented the boreal forest from regenerating. In the 1970s Alberta forests had mostly young and immature trees. Now they have mostly mature or over-mature trees with more deadfall, leading to a greater risk for the most intense and catastrophic of fires.

      “Forest conditions are changing, in part due to climate change, but also as a result of (firefighting) practices, probably the largest of which has been interrupting the natural cycle of fires,” says Peter Fuglem, a B.C. fire expert who helped write Canada’s national wildfire plan and the 2012 review after the Slave Lake fire.

      “Wildfires used to remove fuel and also break up the landscape level forest into various ages and types, therefore reducing the likelihood of wildfire expansion.”

      There’s been a move in recent decades to allow for “appropriate response” to wildfires, Flannigan says, which essentially means putting out fires quickly around human settlements, but monitoring them and letting them burn in more remote areas.

      Simplicissimus
    • @nicolasm
      Nicolas🌱 CC BY-SA

      C’est bien expliqué dans Effondrement de Jared Diamond. Les pratiques de gestion des paysages par les amérindiens permettaient de créer une abondance de nourriture, mais aussi de réduire les grands feux par la mise en place de feux réguliers de basse intensité

      Nicolas🌱 CC BY-SA
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