Re:Wildfires in Big Basin Redwoods State Park
by Smerity on Thursday August 20, 2020 @10:56PM
(#24231497)
To expand on this from the recent Australian fires[1] causing massive damage to traditionally fire resistant environments:
> We’re seeing recurrent fires in tall, wet eucalypt forests, which normally only burn very rarely. A swamp dried out near Port Macquarie, and organic sediments in the ground caught on fire. When you drop the water table, the soil is so rich in organic matter it will burn. We’ve seen swamps burning all around.
> Even Australia’s fire-adapted forest ecosystems are struggling because they are facing increasingly frequent events. In Tasmania, over the past few years we have seen environments burning that historically see fires very rarely, perhaps every 1000 years. __The increasing tempo, spatial scale, and frequency of fires could see ecosystems extinguished.__
Worsened {frequency, intensity, drought conditions, ...} in fire seasons can be catastrophic even to those environments traditionally considered stable under such pressure.
> We’re seeing recurrent fires in tall, wet eucalypt forests, which normally only burn very rarely. A swamp dried out near Port Macquarie, and organic sediments in the ground caught on fire. When you drop the water table, the soil is so rich in organic matter it will burn. We’ve seen swamps burning all around.
> Even Australia’s fire-adapted forest ecosystems are struggling because they are facing increasingly frequent events. In Tasmania, over the past few years we have seen environments burning that historically see fires very rarely, perhaps every 1000 years. __The increasing tempo, spatial scale, and frequency of fires could see ecosystems extinguished.__
Worsened {frequency, intensity, drought conditions, ...} in fire seasons can be catastrophic even to those environments traditionally considered stable under such pressure.
[1]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/massive-australian-b...