Ian Bradford: What Causes Wildfires

Wildfires don’t start themselves.   So what causes a wildfire to start?  Conditions are ripe for fires in summer as the countryside is dry.  But who or what starts them? 

ITALY

The BBC news in Calabria Italy, had the following heading:  Are arsonists behind Italy’s  devastating wildfires?

In this part of Italy wildfires force evacuations and turn the ground to ash, and they destroy the history and ecology of the land.  In the past two years wildfires have damaged a 13^th C church in Sicily and burnt down several century-old olive trees in Puglia.   The president of Calabria, Roberto Occhiuto, estimated that arson in his region was behind 80% of the wildfires.  He said that “last year we caught 22 arsonists and this year too we are finding several.”

He and regional authorities are keen to emphasise that they are putting in–place systems to deter such behaviour - including drones that scan the territory for arsonists.  Mr Occhiuto admitted that drones had shown images of “organised Arson squads.” 

CANADA

In Canada it is found that about half of the fires are caused by lightning and the other half are human caused.  Maxine Benier, the former Foreign Minister is certain wildfires have been started by green terrorists to give their climate change campaign a boost.  In 2023 there have been larger wildfires than in any previous years.  Three million hectares have been burnt.  Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated. In Quebec all of the wildfires began on the same day - an indication that humans may be responsible. In Alberta, it is estimated that about 90% of the fires are human caused, with the possibility that eco-terrorists may be behind them.

AUSTRALIA

Bushfire arson is an important issue in Australia.  With every Australian fire season, the media carries reports of bush fires that police and fire authorities believe were deliberately lit.  Asia and Pacific news reports from Canberra that hundreds of Australians have been arrested for allegedly deliberately lighting Australian bushfires in only a matter of months. Australia is currently enduring one of the worst bushfire crises in the nation’s history, with at least 25 people having been killed since last September.  In NSW alone 183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire related offences, since last November, with 24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires. In Queensland, 101 people have been arrested for deliberately starting fires.     Natural fires account for only about 6% of known causes of vegetation fires attended by fire services.  Over 90% are the result of people’s actions, and more often than not the result of deliberate ignitions. Malicious and suspicious fires account for one half of all known fire causes. In Western Australia there has been a recent introduction of targeted arson reduction strategies .  As most vegetation fires are caused by people, their distribution is closely linked to human populations.  The greatest concentration is along the urban interface - the zone where people and vegetation co-exist. Rapid increases in total fire numbers, commonly as a result of increased numbers of deliberate fires, place great strain on rural fire services, which rely principally on the efforts of volunteers.

UNITED STATES

Wildfires can start when lightning strikes or when someone fails to put out a campfire. New research shows that people start a lot more fires than lightning does - so much so that people are drastically altering wild fire in America.

Fire ecologist Melissa Forder says about 60% of fires in national parks are caused by humans: “intentionally set fires, buildings burning and spreading into the forest, smoking, equipment malfunctions, and campfires.”  But the average for all forests is even higher. The latest research shows that nationwide, humans cause more than 84%. So not only are people causing more fires, they are extending the fire season by about three months.  

The Rocky Mount fire in Virginia burnt more than 10,000 acres in 2022.  The firefighting team spent more than two weeks stopping it.  The ignition source at Rocky Mount is thought to have been people. There was no lightning at the time.

GREECE

The Greek Government has stated that most fires in Greece were started by human hand.

“Most of the 667 fires that have erupted across Greece in recent weeks were started by human hand”, the country’s senior climate crisis official said.  The government claimed recently that most of the fires could have been prevented. The 667 fires means about 60 fires per day. The Greek Minister for climate crisis, Vassilis Kikilias,  said that in certain places blazes had broken out at numerous points in close proximity at the same time, suggesting the involvement of arsonists intent on spreading fires further.  Strong winds were also a problem.

The fires have killed three people and injured 74 others. Two air force pilots were killed as they tried to extinguish flames in their water-bombing plane before it crashed on the island of Evia.  

 

A  LOOK BACK IN HISTORY FOR THE U.S.

I recently wrote about the high temperatures experienced in the northern hemisphere. I then pointed out that higher temperatures than recent ones were experienced in 1933, and a record 57 deg C way back in 1877.

The same applies to wildfires.  Wildfires are not new and the death toll back in the 19^th and early 20^th Century for the US was far greater than at present.

For three days in 1871, the entire Upper Midwest of the U.S. was a raging inferno and four of the worst fires in American history known collectively as the Great Fires of 1971, burned simultaneously in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

The Great Chicago Fire killed an estimated 300 people, charred 17,500 buildings and left 100,000 homeless.   Three other wildfires in Michigan claimed more than 500 lives, but the deadliest of the Great Fires was the Peshtigo Fire which tore through the rural Wisconsin town of Peshtigo on the night of October 8^th 1871. The fast moving wildfire killed 800 residents in Peshtigo and claimed as many as 2,400 victims in total. The summer and autumn were some of the driest seasons on record but logging practices had littered the landscape with dead branches and stumps. 

Nearly 50 years after the Great Fires another deadly fire struck the Upper Midwest of the USA.  The conditions in 1918 were nearly the same - the driest October in 48 years. Sparks from a passing train ignited a wildfire outside the small town of Cloquet, Minnesota.  High winds fanned the wildfire into a raging killer.  Three smaller towns were consumed and then the fire bore down on the larger city of Duluth.  More than 1000 people lost their lives, 38 communities were destroyed and 250,000 acres were burned.

Over 36 hours in August 2010, a large wildfire known as the Big Burn scorched 3 million acres of virgin forest in Montana, Idaho, and Washington.  Of the 87 people who died in the blaze, 78 of them were firefighters. Once again, high winds fanned the small fire which began.  This whipped the brush fires into a frenzy. Flaming trees were ripped from the ground and hurled through the air at 70mph.  The heat was so intense that trees exploded like Roman candles.

The Camp Fire of 2018 was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. It was the most expensive disaster in the world in 2018, in terms of insured losses. The fire began on November 8^th 2018, in Camp Creek Road in Butte County. It was ignited by  a faulty electric transmission line.   A wind drove the fire downhill through developed areas. An urban firestorm developed in the foothill town of Paradise. Once again drought was a factor. The Camp Fire caused 85 civilian casualties with one person missing. Twelve civilians and five firefighters were injured. It covered an area of 620 sq km and destroyed more than 18,000 structures. Two towns were totally destroyed and two others almost totally destroyed.  In January 2019, the total damage was estimated at 16.5 billion dollars.

SUMMARY

It appears human action is the most common reason cited for starting wildfires.  The most common natural cause seems to be lightning, but well below the number of fires started by humans.  Of the fires started by humans, a high proportion are deliberately lit.  What do we hear from the media?  “The fires are caused by climate change”!!!   If the reporters were honest and doing their job properly they would give this information to presenters. If they were really worth their salt, then they would go further and do a bit of investigation: Who is starting these fires and why.   But no, all we get is climate change is the cause and it goes without saying that all of us are responsible for putting more Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Don’t forget cows are to blame also.

A few degrees temperature rise is not going to start a wildfire.  A fire needs something to ignite it. Matches would be a good start. It is the number of fires that start almost simultaneously in different places that indicate human causes.

Wild fires are not new.  Worse fires have occurred in the past. Are they due to climate change too caused by humans? No of course they are not.

These continuing attempts at scaremongering must stop. The media has a great deal to answer for.

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer, keen sportsman, and author, who writes about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.