What Are Wildfires?
A wildfire is an uncontrolled fire that burns in the wildland vegetation, often in rural areas. Wildfires can burn in forests, grasslands, savannas, and other ecosystems, and have been doing so for hundreds of millions of years.
What Are The Effects Of Wildfires?
- Wildfires can burn in vegetation located both in and above the soil. Ground fires typically ignite in soil thick with organic matter that can feed the flames, like plant roots. Ground fires can smolder for a long time — even an entire season — until conditions are right for them to grow to a surface or crown fire.
- Warmer temperatures mean higher evaporation rates — things dry out more quickly. With that comes drier vegetation that is more likely to burn if anything sparks a flame. In many cases, the flame is sparked accidentally by humans but climate change has also tended to increase the kinds of storms that include lightning.
- Climate change has tended to lengthen fire seasons via droughts. Not only is vegetation getting drier with warmer temperatures but lack of rainfall can double down on that drying.
How Is Our World Affected By Wildfires?
- Wildfires emit smoke, which pollutes the air we breathe and also deteriorates the air quality.
- As wildfires burn, they destroy everything in their path. This can include, homes, farms, wildlife, etc. Some wildfires can burn people too if there are people in their path.
- After a wildfire, when rainfall occurs, the rain washes large quantities of ash, nutrients, sediment, and other contaminants into streams, rivers, lakes, etc. All of this going into the water pollutes the water, in turn polluting the water we drink.
- Wildfires can burn power lines, cutting off power, and communication. As fires burn, they cause trees to fall. As trees fall, they obstruct roads and other forms of transportation.
What Can You Do To Help?
Did you know that 87% of all wildfires are caused by humans? There are many actions we can take to help prevent future wildfires.
- Put out your fires: After grilling make sure that your fire is put out. Also, before going to bed, make sure that your fireplace is out.
- Solar energy: Shockingly, the energy you use for your electricity can trigger wildfires. Using more fossil fuels and coal leads to a higher chance of wildfires.
- Building homes on proper land: Using forest and grassland space to build homes, can lead to a wildfire. When the forest or grassland space gets hot in the summer months, grass and twigs start to catch on fire.
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