Well the title is the question.
With ‘split’ I mean create some space between blocks where fire has nothing to travel to the next block to spread.
I imagine that actions like dropping water with helicopters would also be unnecessary since we could ‘give up’ a burning block and then the fire would be over.
Or am I too naive about it?
In: Earth Science
This is a common practice around settled areas, to prevent wildfires from coming in too quickly to destroy homes and give residents time to evacuate. But in many cases, it just doesn’t work. The fire breaks are too thin, and winds too high to prevent embers from spreading fires across the breaks. A fire produces its own weather system, superheating air to create a low pressure zone, throwing embers high into the air, while drawing in winds from surrounding weather systems.
But even if firebreaks *can* work, it’s not economical to create firebreaks in the wilderness, however, and also, if the fire is big enough, it’s counter-productive to fell enough trees and clear enough brush to prevent embers from jumping the breaks, because you’ll wind up destroying more forest than by taking your chance with the burn.
Fires are a normal part of the forest lifecycle, and what’s become normal is to do ‘prescribed burns’, which allows us to consume fuel and promote trees which require burns to sprout, while ensuring that the fire won’t get out of control.
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