Fire suppression, the attempted extinguishing of fires, is commonplace in the
United States and some other areas. However, the current method
does not work. One case in point is the
chaparral plant communities of
Southern California.
Most people have seen footage of California hillsides exploding in flame. Common during Santa Ana wind events, these fires can have flames up to 50 feet tall and burn tens of thousands of acres. Often the heat is nearly severe enough to melt metal and the fires move at up to 70 mph. However, this is not the ancestral, normal type of fire for this ecosystem. In the past, fires here were occasionally severe, but usually burned 50-500 acres and self-extinguished. How do we know this? Mexico, being a poor country, can not afford to supress it's fires. There is an extremely strong line along the border showing the differences in fire types. Above the border, fire is less common, but extremely severe. South of the border, small, mild fires are the rule
So, how does fire supression do so much harm? One of the big reasons is that it isn't all that effective. Fire supression techniques are usually able to put out small, slow-moving fires easily. However, when a good santa ana wind kicks up in a drought year, there is NOTHING we can do about it. The fires will literally burn until they hit the ocean (if there are a few rows of houses along the beach, they go too), until the wind changes, or until they burn into an area which has burned recently. If a fire like this kicks up in Mexico, it doesn't have far to go before it hits previously-burned areas. The small, insignificant fires create very effective firebreaks. But in the US, these small fires are immediately extinguished. So, the big fires can rage on, for miles and miles.
What can we do? Currently, we extinguish any fire we see burning in the area. Instead, we should let the small ones burn. Obviously, we should keep them away from houses, by concentrating firefighting activity here and by preventive measures such as firebreaks and planting fire-resistant vegatation. However, when they are burning across open hillsides, they should be left alone. If it looks like the weather will change for the worse, the fire should be extinguished. If a fire starts in a Santa Ana condition, by all means, attempt to put it out. But if it's in an area which hasnt burned for over 30 years or so, all you can do is pray it avoids urban areas.
Does this strategy have risks? Of course it does.. any fire is unpredictable and can rage out of control at any time (when you get certified to do controlled burns, they even tell you that there really is no such thing.). However, letting fires burn only when conditions are worse is akin to breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria with overuse of drugs: it's just dumb.
Note: recent research as of 2005 indicates that many chaparral areas of southern California, unlike other nearby ecosystems, actually have MORE fires now than they did pre-colonization. The problem is there are more ignition sources now, and fire suppression in chaparral is largely ineffective. Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about it short of trying to keep fires from starting. Once a fire starts in dry, windy conditions, the best we can do is set up defenses around structures and try to 'guide' the fires elsewhere.