Wood ignites at temperatures in the hundreds of degrees. How are some wildfires supposedly started by sunlight without human action or lightning?

Question

Wood ignites at temperatures in the hundreds of degrees. How are some wildfires supposedly started by sunlight without human action or lightning?

In: 1508

Answer 1

Dewdrops.

Could be anything from morning condensation, to some animal taking a leak on a leaf at exactly the right angle that the drops act as a natural magnifying glass.

It may seem ridiculous in small scales, but over a course of months in an area thousands of square miles with trees, shrubs, plants, and animals in uncountable numbers, one in a billion chances are being rolled all the time every second.

There’s probably a ton of other factors that help, but the one i’ve heard of most is just ‘water in the wrong place, at the right time magnifying just a tiny bit of sun till it heats up a single point hot enough to start a fire.’