Natural Fires

When we speak of large scale fires, we often associate it with destructive forces that could burn properties and structures down to ashes or commit many lives. What we don’t realize is that large-scale fires have existed way back in the history of our planet, and that these fires are considered as natural occurrences. It is just our perception that lead us to our conceived meaning of fire, but truly, there are more benefits in it rather than the destruction if brings. Nature utilizes these large-scale fires for various reasons, both destructive and beneficial.

We often think of fire as an evil force that consumes both living and non-living things in the environment. But besides this, we are oblivious to the fact that these fires are agents of natural change. These fires are considered as herbivores, because they consume plants and transform them to a more useful material (Bond and Kee). Most plants however, are inedible or just difficult to consume, like towering trees and the like. In order to put this into good use, fires act as herbivores that would devour an entire forest of inedible trees. They are consumed in order to transform the ecosystems into better ones, which the various creatures of our environment could live into (Pyne).

No matter how man intervenes with the way the environment works, nature would always find its way with things. This is true for the occurrence of these large scale fires. Man has struggled and was somehow successful in suppressing these fires from devouring trees and other vegetations. Because of this, nature has somehow managed to adapt by increasing the temperature of the environment lately (Westerling et al.). Because of this increase in temperature, the trees in the forests become more susceptible to these fires. They easily get burned with just a little nudge, like a lit cigarette thrown into the woods, or a boy playing with some matchsticks.

Works Cited:

Bond, William J., and Jon E. Kee. “Fire as a Global ‘Herbivore’: The Ecology and Evolution of Flammable Ecosystems.” TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.20.No.7 (2005).

Pyne, Stephen J. “Pyromancy: Reading Stories in the Flames.” Conservation Biology Vol. 18.No. 4 (2004).

Westerling, A. L., et al. “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity.” American Association for the Advancement of Science Vol. 313 (2006).