However, land-management professionals and firefighters sometimes set fires for good reasons. Fires can be used to promote new, healthy forest growth by clearing away brush and leaving the revitalized soil free.
In fact, foresters often “prescribe” fire to dispose of accumulated debris, enrich the soil by speeding nutrient recycling or retard the growth of shrubs or grasses that would otherwise crowd out recently planted seedlings.
Controlled fires can also be used to fight fire with fire.
Uncontrolled blazes fuelled by weather, wind, and dry underbrush, wildfires can burn acres of land—and consume everything in their paths—in mere minutes.
On average, more than 100,000 wildfires, clear 4 to 5 million acres of land in the U.S. every year. In recent years, wildfires have burned up to 9 million acres of land. Moving at a speed of up to 14 miles an hour they consume everything—trees, brush, homes, even humans—in its path.
Firefighters fight wildfires by depriving them of one or more of the fire triangle fundamentals. Traditional methods include water dousing and spraying fire retardants to extinguish existing fires.
Clearing vegetation to create firebreaks starves a fire of fuel and can help slow or contain it. Clearing away brush from the forest floor also can help prevent rapid spread of wildfires by removing much of the kindling that feeds them and helps them get out of control.
Once a wildfire has begun, firefighters may set a firebreak – - clearing out a patch of land by fire to remove all of its flammable materials so it can act as a natural firewall. Whenever a fire is deliberately set by professionals for one of these reasons, it’s called a “controlled burn” or “prescribed fire.”
Naturally occurring and controlled burn fires play an integral role in nature. They return nutrients to the soil by burning dead or decaying matter. They also act as a disinfectant, removing disease-ridden plants and harmful insects from a forest ecosystem.
And by burning through thick canopies and brushy undergrowth, wildfires allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, enabling a new generation of seedlings to grow.