Re: The unspoken truth about wildfires

Julian <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 30/07/2026 20:49, Tara wrote:
>> On Jul 30, 2026 at 3:34:27 PM EDT, "Julian" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 30/07/2026 19:56, Tara wrote:
>>>> On Jul 30, 2026 at 2:53:09 PM EDT, "Julian" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 30/07/2026 19:29, Tara wrote:
>>>>>> On Jul 30, 2026 at 2:04:17 PM EDT, "Julian" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Bordeaux and Madrid are threatened by flames. In Sicily, arsonists tied
>>>>>>> burning rags to the tails of cats to spread fires. Here in Britain the
>>>>>>> Cairngorms and Peak District national parks are ablaze. It’s the climate
>>>>>>> Armageddon, say the greens. If only we had built more wind farms and
>>>>>>> eaten fewer cows this would not be happening.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hot, dry spells undoubtedly make fires more likely, but awkwardly for
>>>>>>> those blaming climate change, wildfires are getting less frequent
>>>>>>> worldwide, not more, as the globe warms. The acreage burned has
>>>>>>> decreased steadily since 2000, according to Nasa’s satellites, and is
>>>>>>> thought to have almost halved in a century. The great fires of 1871 in
>>>>>>> Wisconsin and Michigan burned more than a million hectares long before
>>>>>>> anybody drove a car, before even Joseph Swan’s first light bulb, when
>>>>>>> the world was cooler.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> It is not just the trend that is surprising. Hard to believe, but this
>>>>>>> year is an unusually quiet year for wildfire: so quiet it is breaking
>>>>>>> records for lack of fires by this date, even in Europe. If you don’t
>>>>>>> believe me, check the figures produced by the Global Wildfire
>>>>>>> Information System: as of last week, the world had seen 106 million
>>>>>>> hectares burn this year, the lowest at this date since these records
>>>>>>> began in 2012. In Europe, just 3.6 million hectares have burned – less
>>>>>>> than half the average for this date. That’s cold comfort to people
>>>>>>> driven from their homes in France, but it is nonetheless a fact.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The real issue is that climate change is a handy excuse for politicians
>>>>>>> who have failed to take precautionary measures to prevent wildfires.
>>>>>>> They can just shrug: it’s global warming, innit? It has been known for
>>>>>>> many decades that in fire-prone habitats, the longer you go without a
>>>>>>> fire, the worse the fires will be. So preventing the build-up of tinder
>>>>>>> by controlled burns is the most important factor.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The California filmmaker Gabriel Mann’s hard-hitting 2023 documentary
>>>>>>> Hotshot showed in detail how fire suppression has made today’s fires
>>>>>>> harder to control. He has no patience with those who use climate change
>>>>>>> as an alibi. ‘They tell you the sky is falling and it’s all the fault of
>>>>>>> our modern, shitty climate,’ he says. ‘But when was the climate not shitty?’
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Here in Britain the government has consistently and relentlessly
>>>>>>> demanded less ‘cool’ burning – low-intensity, controlled fires – in
>>>>>>> winter on heather moorland, Britain’s most fire-prone habitat. Such
>>>>>>> fires have been used by farmers and gamekeepers for generations to
>>>>>>> create a mosaic of short and long heather. This encourages fresh young
>>>>>>> heather shoots for sheep and grouse to feed on and makes open areas for
>>>>>>> rare birds such as golden plover and curlew to nest in. If done in
>>>>>>> winter it can burn off the rank heather plants while leaving the moss
>>>>>>> underneath barely touched, as demonstrated by a famous video in which a
>>>>>>> gamekeeper places a Mars bar in the moss, lights a fierce fire over it,
>>>>>>> then picks up the unscorched, unmelted chocolate bar, unwraps it and
>>>>>>> eats it.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Natural England argues that regular cool burning harms the habitat;
>>>>>>> researchers at York University and elsewhere argue the opposite: that it
>>>>>>> encourages the growth of sphagnum moss and other species by letting
>>>>>>> light in. But both sides agree that regular cool burns can dramatically
>>>>>>> reduce the risk of much more damaging wildfires, which burn down through
>>>>>>> the moss layer and into the peat. Cutting heather instead is less
>>>>>>> effective but better than nothing. Yet Natural England has banned
>>>>>>> heather burning on deep peat altogether and is pushing hard to limit it
>>>>>>> further everywhere – or at least tie it up in complicated licensing
>>>>>>> rules. As a result, the fuel load on heather moorland has been
>>>>>>> increasing; in places the heather is now waist-deep. The National Fire
>>>>>>> Chiefs Council warned last year that such restrictions on heather
>>>>>>> management would increase ‘the danger to firefighters and the public’.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Unlike private owners, bodies such as the Royal Society for the
>>>>>>> Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the National Trust are refusing to burn
>>>>>>> and reluctant to graze heather moorland, as they join the cult of
>>>>>>> ‘rewilding’. With the support of government, they plan to mitigate the
>>>>>>> fire risk by ‘rewetting’ moors with leaky dams to hold back rainwater.
>>>>>>> But this approach is useless in a drought.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Case in point: the Tintwistle fire in the Peak District spread from a
>>>>>>> wild camp in woodland on to a heather moor owned by United Utilities and
>>>>>>> managed by the RSPB. This moor had been extensively ‘rewetted’ yet it
>>>>>>> went up like a torch and the fire spread, drowned Manchester in smoke,
>>>>>>> burned deep into the peat and was only contained – for now – when local
>>>>>>> gamekeepers and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue used two diggers and
>>>>>>> a bulldozer to create a firebreak on its northwest flank on the
>>>>>>> neighbouring Stalybridge estate. But so quick is Natural England to
>>>>>>> prosecute landowners and gamekeepers for even inadvertently breaking
>>>>>>> rules about managing habitat that they were anxious they might be
>>>>>>> punished for doing this.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Richard Bailey, coordinator of the Peak District Moorland Group,
>>>>>>> estimates that the past month’s firefighting by gamekeepers would have
>>>>>>> cost the taxpayer millions of pounds if done by the fire service. Many
>>>>>>> long, hot, hard days and nights have left gamekeepers and their families
>>>>>>> under severe mental strain, alleviated a little by generous food drops
>>>>>>> from Micklehurst cricket club. You can imagine how much it sticks in the
>>>>>>> craw for these gamekeepers that they have been working to save land
>>>>>>> managed by an organisation that makes the risk worse.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The nearby Dovestone fire was also started on RSPB-managed land after a
>>>>>>> man drowned in the local reservoir and his friends commemorated him with
>>>>>>> fireworks. The Cairngorms fire too began on land owned by the RSPB at
>>>>>>> Abernethy. The irony is not lost on locals that the very same people who
>>>>>>> tell us that climate change is an existential crisis are also the ones
>>>>>>> urging us to stop using the one tool we know helps to mitigate the
>>>>>>> problem. If your view is that climate change is a massive threat, why
>>>>>>> are you pursuing policies that increase fuel load?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The North York Moors fire last year affected 2,500 hectares of moorland,
>>>>>>> smouldering for more than a month in the peat and releasing vast
>>>>>>> quantities of carbon dioxide. Yet no Defra minister bothered to visit.
>>>>>>> The cost of fighting these fires does not fall on their department, so
>>>>>>> why do they care, says Jamie Blackett, founder of Ground Cry, a new
>>>>>>> organisation campaigning on behalf of ground-nesting birds like curlews.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The authorities know their policies increase the fire risks. Here is
>>>>>>> what the Cairngorm National Park says in its Integrated Wildfire
>>>>>>> Management Plan about plans to increase shrubs and other vegetation by
>>>>>>> reducing deer and stopping burning: ‘These habitats will take many years
>>>>>>> to develop and during the intervening period fuel loads will increase,
>>>>>>> as will the corresponding need for fire risk mitigation.’ So they knew
>>>>>>> the risk was increasing. But little was done. John Kirk, a board member
>>>>>>> of the Cairngorms National Park Authority, told the Strathspey Herald:
>>>>>>> ‘Everyone is furious… the entire Abernethy forest has no firebreaks.’
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Andrew Gilruth, chief executive of the Moorland Association, says:
>>>>>>> ‘While Scotland has a clear plan to manage the excess vegetation, in
>>>>>>> England the authorities are obsessed with rewilding and restricting all
>>>>>>> commonsense measures for reducing fuel loads.’
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In May, before the drought, Gilruth wrote to MPs who represent moorland
>>>>>>> constituencies to point out that the number of firefighters is down by a
>>>>>>> quarter over the past seven years and that the fire service relies
>>>>>>> heavily on gamekeepers’ vehicles, water bowsers and other equipment.
>>>>>>> Banning the burning of heather means fewer keepers can justify having
>>>>>>> such equipment. He described Defra’s refusal to change policy on heather
>>>>>>> burning as reckless.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sadly he was proved right. So was I. After I warned in these very pages
>>>>>>> last year that government policy was worsening the fire risk on
>>>>>>> moorland, it gives me no pleasure to say: ‘I told you so.’
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Matt Ridley
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Indigenous peoples in North America have been conrolling the threat of wild
>>>>>> fires with prescribed/controlled burns for centuries. Canada is looking to do
>>>>>> the same in co-operation with our native people. We have a problem doing this
>>>>>> however because of the acessibility and vastness of our forests. But in a
>>>>>> country the size of Britain (and other European countries), it seems to me
>>>>>> that controlled fires are a no brainer.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Are inaccessible fires in vast forests really a problem?
>>>>> I think they're as likely good for the land's long term health.
>>>> 
>>>> There is that, but an uncontrolled fire can massively grow and send a lot of
>>>> smoke to people populated areas.
>>> 
>>> A bit like a volcano.
>> 
>> Yeah like that. And
>> "as it moves away from it's sourse the particulate matter, volatile organic
>> compounds and other gases interact in the atmosphere to form secondary
>> particles and gases such as ozone...."
> 
> Oh. good. We can fill that hole in the ozone layer caused
> by all those ladies' hair sprays back in the day...
> Chlorofluorocarbons and the like.  :)
> 

   :-)