why we can’t ‘just’ split big forests into multiple blocks so when a block burns it doesn’t spread through the whole forest.

Question

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

Answer 1

These splits are called “Fire Breaks”, and that’s one of the main things which forest fire fighting crews do. Building them, and maintaining them, is too expensive to do all the time. They also have to be quite large to protect against spread of large fires, which makes them unattractive. They can also lead to erosion and other environmental damage.

A far better strategy is more frequent, smaller, fires as nature intended. This could lead to burning down more homes, but perhaps that would send the message “Don’t build if a forest that burns regularly or your house will get burned down regularly.” More people need to get that message.