Wildfire facts for kids
Wildfire is a general term which includes forest fires, grassland fires, bushfires, brush fires and any other vegetation fire in countryside areas.
Wildfires occur in every continent except Antarctica. They can occur naturally and spontaneously, but many are caused by humans, accidentally or deliberately. Fossil records and human history show that wildfires do occur at intervals. The Great Oxygenation Event and the spread of land plants made Earth a planet of fire.
Wildfires can cause extensive damage to property and human life, but they also have some beneficial effects on wilderness areas. Some plant species depend on the effects of fire for growth and reproduction, although large wildfires may also have negative ecological effects.
Strategies of wildfire prevention, detection, and suppression have varied over the years. One of the more controversial methods is controlled burn: People permit or light small fires to burn away some of the fuel for a potential wildfire. While some wildfires burn in remote forested regions, they can cause extensive destruction of homes and other property in the zone between developed areas and undeveloped wilderness.
Plant adaptation
Plants in wildfire-prone ecosystems often have adaptations to their local conditions. Such adaptations include physical protection against heat, increased growth after a fire event, and flammable materials that encourage fire and eliminate competition. For example, plants of the genus Eucalyptus contain flammable oils that encourage fire and hard sclerophyll leaves that resist heat and drought. This makes them dominant over less fire-tolerant species. Dense bark, shedding lower branches, and high water content in external structures may also protect trees from rising temperatures. Fire-resistant seeds and reserve shoots that sprout after a fire encourage species preservation, as in 'pioneer' species that specialize in restarting ecological succession after a fire.
Smoke, charred wood, and heat can stimulate the germination of seeds. Smoke from burning plants promotes contains orange butenolide, which induces germination of seeds.
Grasslands in Western Sabah, Malaysian pine forests, and Indonesian Casuarina forests are believed to have resulted from previous periods of fire. The deadwood litter of Chamise (Californian greasewood shrub) is low in water content and flammable, and the shrub quickly sprouts after a fire. Sequoia relies on periodic fires to reduce competition, release seeds from their cones, and clear the soil and canopy for new growth. Some have adapted to, and rely on, low-intensity surface fires for survival and growth. The optimum fire frequency for Caribbean pine in Bahamian pineyards is every 3 to 10 years. Too frequent fires favour herbaceous plants, and infrequent fires favour other tree species.
Related pages
Images for kids
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A surface fire in the western desert of Utah, United States
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Experimental fire in Canada
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A dirt road acted as a fire barrier in South Africa. The effects of the barrier can clearly be seen on the unburnt (left) and burnt (right) sides of the road.
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Lightning-sparked wildfires are frequent occurrences during the dry summer season in Nevada.
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Global fires during the year 2008 for the months of August (top image) and February (bottom image), as detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite.
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A Pyrocumulus cloud produced by a wildfire in Yellowstone National Park
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National map of groundwater and soil moisture in the United States. It shows the very low soil moisture associated with the 2011 fire season in Texas.
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Elk Bath, an award winning photograph of elk avoiding a wildfire in Montana
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Aerial view of deliberate wildfires on the Khun Tan Range, Thailand. These fires are lit by local farmers every year in order to promote the growth of a certain mushroom
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1985 Smokey Bear poster with part of his admonition, "Only you can prevent forest fires".
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A prescribed burn in a Pinus nigra stand in Portugal
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Dry Mountain Fire Lookout in the Ochoco National Forest, Oregon, circa 1930
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Wildfires across the Balkans in late July 2007 (MODIS image)
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A Russian firefighter extinguishing a wildfire
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Wildfire fighters cutting down a tree using a chainsaw
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2003 Canberra firestorm
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Charred shrubland in suburban Sydney (2019–20 Australian bushfires).
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Smoke from the 2020 California wildfires settles over San Francisco
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Animation of diaphragmatic breathing with the diaphragm shown in green
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