Peter Wohlleben explains the cause of forest fires. I’ve decided to post this in farming because forestry is farming in a wider sense.
From my personal haunting grounds: Portugal’s ICNF (Instituto de Conservação da Natureza e Florestas, haha) continues to recommend landowners the planting of eucalyptus and pine. In the name of fire safety they created regulations around having to clean your land. That means that organic matter that would improve soils over time has to be removed, as well as plant cover that might help retain moisture in the soil for longer. In early summer all you hear is the sound of weed cutter machines, the fossil fuel industry is of course delighted, and everything dries out even faster. Add some Roundup to the mix for some extra toxic flavour.
Decades ago the ICNF used lies and deception around blue tongue disease in livestock to appropriate common pasture lands and force the planting of pine forests, and despite all studies clearly indicating that ‘planting matches’ is a problem.
The fucking profiteers from all this mess don’t have to live in the affected areas.
Meanwhile the large paper corporations (Navigator is the biggest one here) have their greenwashing on point - if you read their advertising you would think they plant nothing but magical fairytale forests when in reality it’s eucalyptus monoculture (with FSC label of course!) They have firefighting gear and helicopters for their own plantations, while private landowners (often poor fellows who own a few hectares of mountain land) who have been lured into planting the euca have their landscapes burn down with whole mountain ranges turning black.
Monocultures of pine trees and eucalyptus is also associated with the increasing number of people suffering from hay fever and seasonal pollen allergies.
I read a book (I think it was called “1491”) which mentioned that native populations in the Americas avoided big wild fires by having controlled, smaller ones.
Some did controlled burns (shepherds here still do it sometimes in winter), some created an edible, diverse landscape - some thing like what is called agroforestry now.
The euca is not in itself an evil tree (unfortunately some people have started to vilify the poor plant!). All one has to do is intersperse strips of euca or pine with strips of something else, less flammable. Dedicuous trees, horticulture where possible, as much variety as the place can handle. The evil sits in the monoculture and monoculture is chosen (I think) because machine use and also management are easier to handle - so to support the fossil fuel industry and employ fewer people, aka greed. And the money always points towards the same few directions.
That being said, pine and euca are not the only areas that burn, once a fire is hot enough the oaks go, and the giesta and bramble will burn as well. Planting more (dedicuous, diverse) trees to call rain back to the land is the only way to have an improvement in the long run.
Holding water for longer rather than letting it all go into the sea as fast as possible would also help a fair bit. Most moisture in the plants would at least reduce how flammable they are.
