Re: Forest Fires - off topic (Was RE: Testing)

[Ben Kreunen <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A little more ecological clarification...   ;-)

>Thanks for the ecological clarification. I do appreciate the positive 
>aspects of fires in regeneration, however the size of the fires is 
>awesome.  In the UK if we had a fire which consumed 100 acres there would 
>be uproar and demands for the government to resign for poor management of 
>the fire services ;-)

And that is the typical narrow thinking that you get in heavily populated 
modern cities where every effort is made to isolate the population from 
nature.  Take the opposite example... Floods bring nutrient rich soils to 
flood plains but because we see floods as being destructive we control the 
rivers with dams... then we have to use fertilisers to replace the natural 
elements, these leach into the river and create algal blooms which would be 
washed away by floods except the river's been dammed to prevent this... and 
so on...  The more we try to control our environment the more out of 
control we become.

>As the forested areas in the world become smaller and smaller, surely the 
>wildlife in those areas is threatened as their potential habitat becomes 
>smaller. There must have been a lot of roasted animals and insects in 
>those fires - which are still burning.....

But forested areas are not reduced by fires. They are reduced by logging 
and clearing for agriculture. It's just that fires make news headlines and 
clearing of forests doesn't.

Fires also control the distribution of species within a forest.  Without 
fire our open woodlands here would become tangled in thick undergrowth 
which would have considerable effects on the animal population.  These 
plants and animals have evolved with fire. Alter the balance of fire and 
you change the whole environment.

>The question which springs to mind is how big is too big?  What if the 
>fires consumed all of the forested areas where they are currently burning? 
>Would this be good for the ecology?

<http://www.bigbenpublishing.com.au/demo/little_desert.jpg> is a satellite 
image of a 'desert' (132,000 hectares) here in Victoria surrounded by wheat 
farms.  Despite its low rainfall the desert is covered with short trees and 
abounds with wildlife.  With few roads through the area fires burn 
uncontrolled across the desert almost every year. The lighter the patch, 
the more recent the fire.

Despite this constant "destruction" there is more soil erosion, more soil 
salinity and fewer animals on the surrounding farmland, which must be 
considered the real desert in this situation.

>Controlled burns seem to be a good idea (until they go out of control) and 
>surely a better way of managing forest areas.

>Maybe the wildlife also think that fire is bad :-)

Animals have learned to live with death, it's only humans that cling on to 
life at all possible costs without regard to the consequences. Yes animals 
get fried, but without fire their environments would change and they would 
be under even greater pressure to survive in the long term. There is a good 
side to most natural "disasters".


Cheers

Ben

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