The reading passage tries to give some reasons to show that the “let it burn” policy in the United States which is about the natural forest fires has some disadvantages. One the other hand, the professor looks at this concept through a different lens and believes that it has very effective. First, the reading passage mentions that the many trees and vegetation died during the one of the most massive forest fires, Yellow stone, and this national treasure had been destroyed because of this policy. On the contrary, the professor argues that many new plants could germinate and adapt to the new situation in which all tall trees which are similar to barriers and prevent the light penetration; consequently, the forest fires could be become new habitats
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America is about Teddy Roosevelt’s attempt to save the beautiful scenery of the West. Roosevelt used his presidency as a springboard to campaign his want of protection for our woodlands, while doing this he created the Forest Service from this battle. In this book Timothy Egan explores the Northern Rockies to analyze the worst wildfire in United States history. This disaster is known as the “Big Burn,” the 1910 fire quickly engulfed three million acres of land in Idaho, Montana and Washington, completely burned frontier towns and left a smoke cloud so thick that it hovered over multiple cities even after the flames had been extinguished.
No two people are truly the same, therefore creating a mass difference in outlooks when experiencing things. This is seen in the writings of authors Linda Thomas and Joan Didion in their separate essays, Brush Fire and The Santa Ana. Theses essays revolve around the same experience both authors share of the Santa Ana wildfire in southern California, but in different perspective. In Brush Fire, Linda Thomas gives the reader a more beautiful insight on wildfires while Joan Didion has a more serious and disheartening perspective on them, which each author paints in their own way.
Long-leaf pine areas have been converted to loblolly or slash pine plantations or severely fire suppressed. Urban development was a major cause of habitat loss in the early part of this century, as was logging.
Policies regarding the handling of wildland fires continue to change and evolve as new information is learned each fire season. Attitudes have changed between complete wildland fire suppression to no suppression at all. We now seem to have reached a balance between the two schools of thought and fall somewhere in the middle.
Prescribed fire is a controlled burn of an area done by a team of experienced or educated people in a grassland or forested area. This type of burn is intended to help the health of plant and animal species and restore them to their native state. When certain areas that need to be burned so often do not get burned, they can be a hazard to the ecosystem in which it presides. A forest can get over grown and thick which will create more fuel for a wildfire that can destroy a forest community. In grassland a controlled burn, or prescribed burn, can help eliminate invasive species that can take over grasslands that are harmful to the more desirable plants. This type of fire can be seen as harmful and a disaster by many people, but it has great benefits on the areas in which it is done.
Fire played a very important role in the lives of the early Fond du Lac pioneers. It provided people with heat, light, and a means to cook. Almost every home in Fond du Lac had some sort of stove or fireplace. If a fire got out of control, that house and surrounding homes were in danger of burning down. As the town’s population grew larger and larger, the number of fire sources went up as well. The chances of a fire getting out of control were growing quickly. People soon began to fear the inevitable.
In August 2002, President Bush launched his revolutionary campaign against wildfires known as the Healthy Forest Initiative (HFI). The President’s dynamic plan centers on preventing massive forest fires by thinning the dense undergrowth and brush commonly seen in our national forests. The thinning will occur in priority areas that are in close proximity to homes and watersheds. The Healthy Forest Initiative also aims at developing a more efficient response method to disease and insect infestations that sabotage our forests. Finally, if fully enacted, the Healthy Forest Initiative would provide the loggers with what is known as “goods for services”. This will compensate the loggers for the financial burden that will surface as a result of this aggressive thinning (http://www.sierraclub. org/forests /fires/healthyforests initiative.asp). In order to promote the progress of his Healthy Forest Initiative, in 2003 President Bush announced the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. This act took the main issues discussed in the Healthy Forest Initiative a step further. Bush plans to make a collaborative effort with federal, state, tribal, and local officials to protect our woodlands against future infernos. The act also calls for more public participation in reviewing any actions taken in lieu of the Healthy Forest Initiative. Furthermore, Bush wants to restore the land that has already been destroyed by wildfires and help to recover the threatened and endangered species that were affected by the fires (http://www.
Thousands upon thousands of acres are lost in forest fires every year. We always hear about the dramatic losses caused by forest fires and are often concerned by them. There are so many horrible effects from fires and most of them affect so many people. Studies have shown that out of all of the different methods to decrease fire damage, prescribed burns are the most affective. Many people would argue that they are not as affective because they cause so many health problems. Although that is a very important view and may seem valid, those health issues are not as extreme as one might think. People should look at the majority of the benefits form prescribed burns and they will see how affective and important they are. Prevention is the key to society these days and is definitely an important factor in saving lives. If more lives can be saved as well as land and wildlife, prescribed burns may be the better way to go about forest fires. Although, prescribed burns are better for the environment in order to prevent drastic forest fires, severe damage to timber and extreme death of wildlife; some people feel it affects the health of a firefighter too much and it causes too many long term effects.
Words have so many different meanings. Just pick up a dictionary to discover the many different meanings of the same word. Have you ever wondered where the meaning of the word originated? Maybe you have asked what a word means when another has used it out of context. How did one word come to mean so many different things? This paper will allow me to explore the definition of burn and where it originated. I will also discover how it has changed over the years and what the definition is today.
The heat it provides, the capability it gives us to cook and the health benefits it supplies to stay alive, goes unnoticed by mankind. But not the Mbuti. They regard fire as the most important gift from the forest. They understand their dependence and debt owed to the forest, for such an offering (pg. 98).
Humans have been changing the Western forests' fire system since the settlement by the Europeans and now we are experiencing the consequences of those changes. During the summer of 2002, 6.9 million acres of forests was burnt up in the West (Wildland Fires, 1). This figure is two times the ten year annual average, and it does not look like next summer will be any better (Wildfire Season, 1). Foresters have been trying to restore the forests back to their original conditions by thinning and prescribed fires but have encountered countless delays. Politicians are proposing sweeping changes in bills, which have caused great controversy, in efforts to correct the problems that the Forest Service has faced in restoration projects. Are these bills necessary or is there a better solution that politicians are overlooking?
A wildfire is one example of secondary succession. When a disturbance in the environment occurs, such as a wildfire, either part or all of the community is destroyed. The aftermath of the wildfire leaves a barren landscape open to new growth, vegetation, and re-colonization of plant species (Gurevitch et al, 2002). Various studies have been undertaken and completed regarding the restoration and recovery of plant communities following wildfires. These studies include aspects of species richness during colonization to niche development.
“Common Fire – Leading lives of Commitment in a Complex World” is an influential book whose meaning is traced by an absolute equilibrium between research and narration. It is the vision and the inspiration that it provides to the reader that makes it more than just a book to read in order to get credit for a class. The title of the book itself is powerful by putting “common” and “fire” together. The books suggests, previously to reading the first page that we should all be aware, concerned of what’s “burning” around us and take action.
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
The Forest fire is occurring very frequently nowadays, reasons for it are a heavy increase in global warming and an increase in temperature.