At first glance fire may seem to be the least important of the three ancient “elements.” We can sort of live without it, where we would certainly not survive long without water, air and earth. However it is tied to the Oxygen we breath and without fire we would not have had warm houses or cooked food, and those would have certainly been privations. Fire can certainly be both an ally and an enemy from our point of view and early on we really did not understand the vital place it had in the maintenance of certain ecosystems. For example, long-leaf pine forests in the Southeast are maintained by fire and the pines are adapted to having periodic burning to keep non-coniferous trees, other than the shrubby turkey oak, from invading the area (See: www.southfloridamuseum.org/...).
In a non-human world fire is usually started by lightening, or occasionally by volcanic eruption, and is especially likely after droughts. The latter is also a pre-condition for fires in the Anthropocene, but the source of the fire can vary from natural causes to all sorts of man-made combustion sources- sparks from a battery, a neglected campfire, explosions, and of course arson. Actually keeping fire totally out of a forest can eventually cause a much worse conflagration than if fires are occasionally left to burn out. The problem is compounded as people build into the forest, especially into areas where fire control equipment cannot easily enter. Of course there can also be brush and prairie fires and these can also be devastating.
I once visited the Osceola National Forest after there had been a small burn. The burned over area was covered with grass pink orchids, Calopogon puchella. Thus life can benefit from occasional burns. There was, in fact for, many years a periodic meeting on fire and its place in nature at Tall Timbers Research Station near Tallahassee, Florida (See: talltimbers.org/...).
Of all the worse effects of global climate change that we can see from the beginning, drought induced fire is in many ways the most graphic. Australia and the United States, among many other countries, have experienced devastating fires over the last few years, in fact six of the 14 worst fires on record have happened in the last 15 years (See: www.worldatlas.com/...) The largest forest fire in New Mexico recorded history was the cause of the ruby-colored sun shown in the photograph above (See: www.cnn.com/...)
We both need fire and it can destroy us, our animals, our crops and buildings. The wise use of fire in fire-maintained climax ecosystems like that of long-leaf pine and the periodic burning of forests and grasslands can be beneficial and if properly managed can prevent much larger and more dangerous fires.
As usual, all photos are by me.
See: Water! www.dailykos.com/…
Earth! www.dailykos.com/…
Air! www.dailykos.com/...