My Thoughts on forest fires
The big project for this class requires that I look into some aspect of structure fires. Therefore, I was not able to research forest fires, so instead I will discuss them in this blog post.
Forest fires are an interest of mine because they are surprisingly beneficial in many ways. Despite the fact that they can be very damaging, forest fires help the environment to thrive better.
To start, some plants need fire in order to reproduce and help with growth. The heat helps to release seeds and stimulate germination. Additionally, forest fires help burn away dead plant matter which allows for new ones to be grown and it releases nutrients back into the soil, acting as fertilizer. While plants get burned in the process, forest fires can help reduce invasive plants in an area because they aren’t adapted well to withstand fires, as opposed to native plant species.
Relating forest fires to human activity, people have been doing everything in their power to prevent them from happening even though its a natural process. since fires normally decrease the amount of plant matter in an area, preventing them leads to an excess amount. However a fire is bound to happen, so when it does, it uses all of the plant matter for fuel and leads to a much bigger fire than there should have been under normal conditions.
Overall, fires may be destructive, but they are essential to certain ecosystem, so with the help of controlled burning of forests, it can help lead to less damage to humans and the animals that live in those forests as well.
I visited Washington state over the summer and took this is a picture of smoke from a forest fire there. Unfortunately there was a hiking trail we wanted to go on that was right by the fire, so we were unable to do that. I did some research and it seems like the fire was completely contained only a month ago.