It's crazy to think about how many forest fires happen around the world each year. I remember last year when I had to drive passed the town of Lytton in the summer shortly after the fires. It was absolutely devastating to see the destruction the fire had...
We are in a losing game! We are in an endless loop of literally putting out one fire, to only have another one pop up. Some can argue that this is due to us FIGHTING NATURE. The more we fight fires, the longer we are preserving those fuels in nature that would have otherwise been burned. In turn, we are leaving more fuels in nature that only helps ignite and spread future forest fires.
This sparks the thought: what is the best method to mitigate the fires? One way to tackle this is prevention -for example, prescribed burns? There are so many beneficial outcomes of this... however it has to be done to just the right amount. It is interesting to entertain the idea of fighting fire with fire.
My Vision is to live in a community/ environment where climate change no longer is on the uprise for causing more fires (through drying fuels in nature). My values are to truly realize the impact climate change as on our globe; from temperatures rising, glaciers melting and fires starting.
Modes of intervention come from as a community, finding sustainable methods to both prevent and fight fires. There is a fine balance between fighting fires to just the right amount in order to lead to further prevention (burning some of those fuels). This is a tricky thing to balance, and it's hard to know if there is perfect solution out there - but the least we could do is try, and try to mitigate our impacts that contribute to climate change.
Continuing education surrounding this topic is important in order to create aware members of society who will in the future contribute to to fighting fires in the most sustainable way!
Hi Maria, thank you for such a passionate post! I love how you emphasized community in our modes of intervention - we really must all come together to make tangible change.
Great post! I like how you bring up the dichotomy of our human interests to prevent destruction and the nature cycle of forests burning. Fighting against nature never leads to positive results because nature is too complex of a system for humans to be able to "manage". We should be modelling our fire management practices based on what nature does to manage itself: burning more frequently, but to a lesser extent.
Great post! I love your argument that the destructive situation we are in is a result of us fighting nature. The colonial mindsets that dictate our current forestry practices see nature not as something to work with, but rather to work against and control, and this is what has gotten us into this situation. There needs to be a societal level shift in mindset towards relations with nature if the wildfire problem is to be truly resolved.
Hi Maria Greco, I couldn't agree more about the notion that we are indeed fighting a losing battle that we ourselves are fuelling by continuing harmful practices. Short-term bandaid solutions won't cut it forever, they will simply provide us with more time in our fight against the larger beast that is climate change. Whether we choose to rise to the call for action is up to us.