Topic: Wildfires

Type of paper:	Research Paper
Subject area:	Nature
Academic level:	College
Style:	MLA
Size:	644.5 kB
Word count:	1774
Mark awarded:
Date submitted:	2008-11-21 23:20:20
Rating/Votes count:	5.00 / 4

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Tags:

state, abuse, california, fire, london, fires, alcoholism, jack, southern, Southern California, American Association, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Access Year, Primary Care Medicine, Earlier Spring Increase Western

WILD FIRES-YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Wild firesPg . 3
Causes of wildfires
Pg . 3
1 .2 .1 . Natural causes Pg . 3
1 .2 .2 . Artificial Causes
Pg . 4
1 .3 Report Aim Pg . 4
2 . Fire Process and Behavior
2 .1 . Fuel Pg . 6
2 .2 weather Pg . 7
2 .3 Topography Pg . 7
3 . Linkages with other Natural Hazards
3 .1 Natural hazards
Pg .8
3 .2 climatic changes
Pg .9
3 .3 Biological effects Pg .10
4 . Case Study : Yellowstone National Park 1988
Pg 10-11
5 . References Pg . 12
Illustrations
Figure 1 - spread of fire from ground fuel to aerial fuel . Pg . 6
Figure 2 - Extreme fire behavior in a dense , mixed conifer stand .
Pg . 8
Figure 3 - An accretionary lava ball . Pg . 9
Introduction
Wildfires
There are three components needed for ignition and combustion to occur .
A fire requires fuel to burn , air to supply oxygen , and a heat source to
bring the fuel up to ignition temperature . Heat , oxygen and fuel form
the fire triangle . These are prerequisite conditions for any fire . A
spark or even the sun 's heat alone sets off an inferno . The wildfire
quickly spreads , consuming the thick vegetation and almost everything
else in its path . What was once a forest becomes a virtual powder keg of
untapped fuel . Wildfire overtakes thousands of acres of surrounding
land , threatening the homes and lives of many in the vicinity . For
instance , the October 2003 fires in South California burned
approximately 742000 acres and destroyed about 3 ,361 homes and about 26
lives were lost .
Most of the Native Americans history is told and thought to be one that
was characterized with fires , which used to burn down forests . These
stories illustrate the threat posed by wildfires .
1 .2 Causes of wildfires
There are various causes of the wild fires while some of the causes are
natural others could be considered artificial . Artificial in the sense
that they are triggered by human activity .
1 .2 .1 . Natural causes
The existence of fire within a landscape has been at least one of the
greatest evolutionary factors influencing the composition of flora and
fauna . More often than not , the natural fire causes include : lightening ,
sparks of fire originating from rocks , volcanic activity as well as the
spontaneous combustion of organic substances and plant materials . Of
these , lightening is considered the most effective factor in almost all
the fires that have hit Southern California and anywhere else in the
world . This is so because the rate at which lightning strikes the earth
is about 100 times a second averaging to about over 3 billion strikes
per annum (Barbour , Burk Pitts 1980 .
It is said that there has been a dangerous mix of drought and wind ,
which has constantly hit for instance , the Southern California region
for ages . According to a study carried out in 2006 , researchers
established that western federal forests had been burned about seven
times more in 1987-2003 than...

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