Fire 2
Fire 2Introduction
Fire is a topic on which most people can comment. Fire is a widespread phenomenon. Most of us have seen fires in natural vegetation, or their effects; stark, blackened vegetation or a smoke pall. Because fires such as these can have damaging economic and social effects, can spoil forestry timber, can burn down houses and farms, and can kill people and animals, there has been a lot written about wildfires. Added to this wide perception of the damage that can be caused by wildfires, there has been increasing publicity given, since the 1950's, to the active use of fire as a management tool, particularly in protecting against severe wildfires. The introduction of a policy of deliberate burning as a management tool has a fascinating history, especially in the United States Forest Service, but the ecological effects of prescribing a fixed burning regime on large tracts of land are increasingly being questioned (Lyons, 1985, 3).
To an ecologist, fire can be treated as just one of the many factors in an environment. It compares with droughts, floods, hurricanes and other physical disturbances because of the direct impact it makes on organisms. Unlike these physical factors, however, fire as a disturbing force is itself influenced by the biota, particularly the plant community. Alteration of the vegetation by any number of factors can influence the nature of a subsequent fire. Fire has similarities to grazing as a force on vegetation because of such feedback effects (Whelan, 1995, 20).
Fire History
When cavemen learned to make and use fire, they could start to live in civilized ways. With fire, they were able to cook their food so that it was easier to eat and tasted better. By the light of torches, men could more easily find their way at night. They could also improve their wooden tools by hardening the points in fire. With fire to keep them warm, they could live in the colder regions and spread out over the Earth ([CD-ROM], 1996).
It is supposed that early people got fire accidentally from trees set ablaze by lightning or from spouting volcanoes. Then they carefully kept it burning in huts or caves. As far back as the study has gone, primitive peoples have never been found without fire for warmth and cooking. Fire also protected them from wild beasts ([CD-ROM], 1996).
In time people discovered how to create fire by rubbing dry sticks together. Then they invented bow drills to aid the process. When they began to chip flint to make axes, they found that hot sparks came from the stone. From this they later developed the flint-and-steel method of fire making. Later it was found that fire could be made by focusing the sun's rays with a lens or curved mirror ([CD-ROM], 1996).
People remained ignorant of the true character of fire until 1783. In that year the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier investigated the properties of oxygen...
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