Understanding Wildfire And The Fire Triangle

Wildfire, Trees, and Gasoline, Okay, you are wondering what these three things have in common. It is quite simple, trees have the same compound that is present in gasoline and this compounds are released when woods are heated to abut 150^oC and at this point, the wood starts to release volatile gasses. It is these gasses that we refer to as smoke from the wood but this smoke contain compounds found in methane and octane which are hydrocarbons. The gasses in the wood upon increased heat will react with oxygen and combust more.

Now let me relate it to wildfire. You see those chemical compounds that are similar to compounds in hydrocarbons are responsible for hundreds of thousands of wildfire across the world consuming millions of hectares of bushes and forests annually. For a fire to happen, heat, oxygen and fuel needs to be available and when there is a wildfire, the fire spread really fast across land areas with these three things available. With wild fire it occurs naturally but this is no difference from the artificial fire that we make because it uses the same three things and in other to put fire out, we have to either reduce or eliminate one of the three compounds.

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With wildfire, the woods are the fuel and they are what fuels the burning with some woods burning fast like dry grasses, and leaves known as lighter fuel. With fire, the quantity of fuel determines how the spreading ability of fire but fuel is not the only thing that helps a fire to burn, oxygen is not left out. In the atmosphere, there is about 21% oxygen available and this is enough to make a fire burn because fire needs a minimum of 16% oxygen to combust.

Actually, it looks like having wildfire is a normal phenomenon that plants are used to but it becomes a problem when it starts to destroy human infrastructure and properties. Plants have learned to adapt to it such as in the case of Jackpine which has learned to die and drop its seeds into ash enriched soils when there is a fire. So when the Jackpine tree dies in a wildfire, new one would grow to replace the old ones since the seeds have been distributed into Wood ash. Wood ash is a great fertilizer containing nutrients like calcium, potassium, and magnesium which are important for the growth of plants. Just when you would think the awesome work of wood ash is finished, it serves as a liming agent, raising the soil's pH to help neutralize acidity.

Like I mentioned that plants and the forest needs the fire so as to be able to undergo recycling. With wildfire, there are no canopies in the forest which gives the forest soil access to direct sunlight and it also allows water to penetrate the soil easily but in most cases, the wildfires experienced in the forest are man-made cause by people setting out camps in the forest and in the process having unattended campfire, discarded cigarette, sparks from fallen power lines, and so on but 10% of wildfire is caused by natural occurrence like lightening strike and Lava from a volcano nearby.

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Still on understanding fire, temperature and sunlight have a big role to play and what drives it. Because the sun is up and the warm air rises, air current will travel up sloped landscapes and at night were there is no sun to heat the ground causing the ground to be cool and air current to travel downwards, fire can travel burning upslope in the day and down slope at night.

When we want to let out fire, we need to be able to control one of the three things that causes the fire since we cannot control other factors that causes the fire to burn towards what direction or its speed. The easiest way to put out a fire is to remove or reduce the fuel. Firefighters will usually look at ways to reduce the fuel in wildfire before the fire gets to the region and they will also use water to put out the fire. Water is great at reducing heat, blocking oxygen and dampening the fuel.

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^Reference

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^{https://www.hcn.org/issues/44-16/fire-scientists-fight-over-what-western-forests-should-look-like/
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/us/as-california-battles-fires-fears-of-worse-ahead.html?_r=0
https://www.borealforest.org/forest-fire/
https://www.nwfirescience.org/sites/default/files/publications/FIREFACTS_Triangles.pdf
https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluation.htm
https://www.science.org/content/article/human-sparked-wildfires-are-more-destructive-those-caused-nature
https://www.mfs.sa.gov.au/community/safety-and-education/fact-sheets-and-brochures/fact-sheet-pages/extinguishing-a-fire}