Climate change and fires

ROBERT (CP, 04/12) says the severity of bushfires is largely man-made.

Robert, there is a lot of truth in that statement. In the US, a century of putting out fires started by lightning strike in their pine forests meant many young trees grew between the big trees. When a fire came through, the young trees caught fire and created a crown fire killing the entire forest.

On the same day in the same fire, big trees with only grass underneath survived. Large areas of California’s pine forests are now gone and replaced by grassland through mismanagement.

However the overwhelming driver of today’s increasingly bigger fires is climate change. Less rainfall and hotter days both here in the US have made fires bigger and harder to stop. On hotter days and without rain vegetation dries quickly.

Even your mowed backyard grass will burn on a hot windy day.

Peter Taylor, Trinity Beach

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