At 09:18 AM 5/17/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>forestry or natural resources, so they may have know about forest fire
>causes as well. Therefore the question is: Besides lightning, is there
>any other way that a forest fire could start by natural causes?
Yes, in fact the biggest fire I ever worked on was started by friction. We
had a very severe wind storm and it blew a dead tree down. It was on a
VERY steep hillside and we were in the middle of a drought then also. By
the time that the tree got to the bottom of the hill there was plenty of
heat to ignite the very dry underbrush in the area. Lightning is of course
the normal way that most fires started where I was at.
On a side note, lightning caused fires were always much harder to fight
than man started fires. Generally a fire started by a person is started in
an area that a person can easily get to. Meaning that they are usually
near a roadway. Lightning always seemed to strike and start fires at the
farthest possible distance from any road. Also, rain does very little to
put a fire out once it has already started. What it does do is make the
fire "lay down" so that it is easier to fight.
I heard on the news this morning that the Coronado National Forest has just
banned all fires.
Scott
Team My Blue Heaven
www.myblueheaven.com/geocache
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