Wildfire Research Papers

Wildfires are large, destructive fires that spread quickly across woodland or brush. These fires are powered by the weather, wind, and dry underbrush. Tons and tons of land can be burned, leaving everything in its path destroyed. This all can happen in just a matter of minutes. Uncontrolled blazes, or wildfires “can clear four million to five million acres of land in the U.S. every year (Wildfires, 2015).” During a wildfire, it moves at a speed of around fourteen miles an hour. While it’s burning, it’s consuming everything including homes, trees, brush, or even humans. “There are three conditions that need to be present in order for a wildfire to burn. Firefighters refer to these conditions as the fire triangle: fuel, oxygen, and a heat source (Wildfires, 2015).” Trees, grasses, brush, and homes are all materials that fuel a wildfire. If an area’s fuel load is higher, the fire is more intense. Air supplies the oxygen needed for a fire to burn, a heat source can help spark the wildfire, and it can also bring fuel to temperatures hot enough to ignite. “Lightning, burning campfires or cigarettes, hot winds, and even the sun can all provide sufficient heat to spark a wildfire (Wildfires, 2015).”
When the weather becomes dry, all the healthy vegetation will begin to get dry as well, making it become a flammable source of fuel. Strong winds can spread a fire very quickly and with warm temperatures, it causes the fire to keep on burning, so it’s harder to put out. When all of these factors come together, all that’s needed is some kind of spark. The spark could be “in the form of lightning, arson, a downed power line, burning campfire, or a cigarette burning (Wildfires, 2015).” These all can start a fire that could last for weeks and destroy thousands of acres of