Factors of Forest Fires

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Long before fire was used by humans, forest fire was initially play an importantly role in maintaining the ecology of the world. The factors of forest fires can be divided into two types, which are natural forest fires and human-induced forest fires. Usually human-induced fires are detected earlier than natural forest fires, which might have burn for hours long before the arrival of firefighters. Thus, natural forest fires cause a greater harm to forest in term of area burnt than human-induced forest fires although the later one has actually contribute to a higher percentage of the total cases of forest fires.
Natural forest fires are resulted from spontaneous combustion, volcanic activity, or lightning, which is the most significant among the three factors listed.Statistics showed that approximately 40,000 thunder clouds occur over the world daily (Schonland, 1950). Unexpectedly, every single lightning-caused forest fire causes more mean area burnt than human-induced fire (Ahrens, 2013). The occurrence of most forest fire started by lightning is during summer, early evening, and late afternoon.
Spontaneous combustion happens when a fire is initiated by the lightning on dry fuel such as leaves. Those dry fuels are the supporting elements that enable the fire to spread throughout the forest. Leaves are easy to be ignited due to the less water content as compared to those stored in tree trunks and branches. Such condition happens especially during drought seasons where the rate of transpiration is high and it is not balanced by the rate of water absorption. Thus, those plants can very inflammable due to low water content.
According to British Columbia (n.d.), another factor of natural forest fire is the weather. The three importa...

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...eo Camphor / Brunei Teak. Retrieved from http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/31301-Trees-of-Singapore-Botanical-Gardens
Gönner, C. (2000). Causes and impacts of forest fires: A case study from East Kalimantan, Indonesia. International Forest Fire News (IFFN) No. 22, April 2000, p.35–40. Retrieved from http://www.fire.uni-reiburg.de/iffn/country/id/id_24.htm.
Kimmins, J. P. (2004). Forest ecology: A foundation for sustainable forest management and environmental ethics in forestry (3rd ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Rolph, G. (2013). More than a dozen fires are burning across south west Queensland, many of them sparked by lightning. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-14/storms-to-accompany-change-as-heat-wave-ends/4463428
Schonland, B. F. J. (1950). The flight of the thunderbolt. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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