How can accidental forest fires occur so frequently when lighting a small fire of dead, dried wood can be so difficult?
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I own some land in Northern California that was burned during the fires last year.
This was a house on the adjacent parcel, the oven is on the left, and the fireplace is on the right:
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/fwCVES7PSzaJ9MiV6](https://photos.app.goo.gl/fwCVES7PSzaJ9MiV6)
This was their fire pit, their firewood was spared:
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/J3DQby4UpzBVkZdB8](https://photos.app.goo.gl/J3DQby4UpzBVkZdB8)
Houses in the US are made from softwood like pine, fir, and hemlock. Many trees in these forests are softwood trees like redwoods, pines, and cedars.
Softwood trees naturally contain a lot of oil. Pine oil was traditionally used as a cleaning agent (pine sol), and they’re also very fragrant. Woods with a higher oil content like redwood can also be more rot resistant. These trees are fast growing so they have a softer wood as well. When the wood burns, it’s oil content means it releases a thick black smoke so you can’t burn it indoors or use it to cook food. The oil also makes it easy to burn.
Hardwood trees have a much denser wood that typically is harder. Because the wood is denser/heavier, it burns much longer, but also burns hotter. In order to light hardwood, it takes a higher temperature than to light softwood.
I’ve actually used fresh redwood as a fire starter because the oil content makes it light super fast. It produces black smoke, but by the time it’s done burning the hardwood is just getting started.
Matches are possibly also softwood, so they could light more easily, but also don’t burn hot enough to easily spread a fire to hardwood.
I happen to live very close to the SCU Lightning Complex Fire, one of the biggest fires in California history. Over here, people like to cover it as if it’s a forest fire, and there was a lot of fake news criticizing California over it’s Forest management. The reality is there’s almost no trees:
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/8UqjDD97nPuz8iRk6](https://photos.app.goo.gl/8UqjDD97nPuz8iRk6)
This was an unrelated fire that was contained. The only trees are some pink peppercorn trees by that gas station. The green bushes are tumbleweeds which are water intolerant – the rain kills them and then they go tumbling.
In the winter time, it’s lush and green from the rain, but there’s still no trees – the black spots near the middle of the photo horizontally are American Black Angus cows:
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/77WZiRK4WMz3AvXR8](https://photos.app.goo.gl/77WZiRK4WMz3AvXR8)
The wood is different.
The biological anti-freeze (terpine) that lets evergreen pines stay green even in the snow without their needles freezing also makes the plants extremely flammable.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwood
Growing up in an area with these plants, I never knew starting a fire *could* be hard because pine needles are so incredibly flammable. All you need is a pile of them, and a spark, and a little breath and you’ve got a roaring pinewood bonfire in minutes.
Even if ignition in each possible even it quite low if there is enough event some will still occur.
I igniting the fire with dried wood is hard you are doing something wrong. A small enough piece and a flame and you will get fire. That is if there is not too much wind because then you need to protect the fire from it.
There is also other stuff that can burn that is even simple to ignite like dried grass. A single spark on dry grass can ignite it.
Accident fires cans also are the result of intentional fires that spread in an unintentional way. So the fire is already there and ember flies away and starts to smoulder or the fire itself is not put out in an appropriate way.
There is dry thunderstorms with lightning hitting the ground and can ignite stuff but no rain hitting the ground.
Because they occur in climates where lighting a small fire isn’t so difficult, or more so when there is a fire it spreads quick because if the lack of moisture in the air. All it takes is a cigarette or camp fire in an act of carelessness, and the whole are can be compromised.
Edit: yeah difficult lighting a single piece of dried wood, but the kindling surrounding it not so much.
Out West (Rocky Mtns USA) can be so dry that big burly manly men have to slather on Aveeno and St. Ives all year round. You can start a fire with an angry glare.
If lighting a fire of dried, dead wood is difficult, you’re doing something wrong.
But forest fires don’t start by lighting wood. The start by lighting dead grass, or dry leaf litter, or dead pine needles. This acts as tinder, which then catches the wood. These substances can be caught alight by as little as a stray spark from a controlled campfire, or a not quite extinguished cigarette.
It depends on your climate and environment.
I’ve lived and camped all around the US. I would say in the Midwest, even at the height of summer, in the driest months, it can still be difficult to take flame to a pile of dried forest refuse, and get it to catch. Also, the wood supply (if you have to buy) typically isn’t dry enough for a good sustained fire. I keep firewood for a couple years in the Chicago area just to make sure it dries well.
When I was living in Oregon… Oh, I got it. You might think, oh, the Pacific Northwest, doesn’t it rain there all the time? Yeah, in the rainy season. But the dry season is DRY. And here’s a thought, a place that rains that much has got to have some damn good drainage, doesn’t it? So the whole place dries out real fast.
You go out into the forest in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, and you can SMELL how dangerously dry it is. All those pine and fir trees, their sap and resin makes the trees like rags soaked in kerosene. I wouldn’t rub two sticks together out there if I were you.
So if you haven’t experienced it out there, or in other areas that get seasonal forest fires, then go visit. See for yourself. I suggest you go visit the redwood forests in early August.
Natural forest fires do not occur frequently – forests go for decades and decades without a fire breaking out. Natural causes for forest fires include lightning, volcanos, meteors, coal seam fires, methane discharges and mulch fires. Lightning is by far the most frequent cause though. Inevitably an undisturbed forest that hasn’t otherwise burnt down with either land up with enough dead trees from disease or malnutrition that the mulch would build up sufficiently to cause a spontaneous compost fire.
Human caused forest fires like cigarette butt fires only happen when the circumstances are perfect for fire – lots of very dry grass leading onto lots of very dry leaves leading onto lots of dry twigs with a steady gentle breeze bringing in a good amount of fresh air..
Lighting a fire is difficult because the ignition temperature of wood is 250 to 300 degrees Celsius. Don’t forget that a key component of fire is lots of oxygen and not a lot of CO2 – if you don’t have a fire place with an open flume to ready suck out the carbon dioxide filled air your fire isn’t going to last long.
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