Man interrupted natural forest fire cycle by stopping fires and preventing them. Natural fuel builds for years. Lightening strikes in dry years causing huge fires.
Nature was just trying to rebalance itself. The ecosystem is simply trying to heal itself with fire. There are trees and plants that actually require fire and the high temperatures in order to germinate their seeds.
Amazing stuff if we just quit meddling. No, “climate change” isn’t the culprit.
Bingo. The climate varies no matter what man does.
I remember when people were called nuts for pointing this out in the 1970s. However, I earned a good part of the money for college by interfering with the fire cycle, so there's that. Had a lot of fun doing it, too.
Those really hot fires kill off everything... Then we take airplanes and dump tree seeds on the area resulting in a tree or five every square foot.
You are correct on interrupting the cycle.
Fire burns where fire burns. In other words, if you have had one, you are liable to have another. Fire follows terrain in the right weather. The terrain is always there, the weather will reoccur.
Our fir, The Nuns Fire in 2017, was preceded by the Hanly in 1964 and by another in 1926, and another in 1871. Those are the ones we know of that followed nearly the exact same pattern.
The big difference is in 26 and 64 it took days to burn what burned in hours in 17. The earlier ones had people grazing, clearing, and prescribed or controlled burning the area. With the absence of those things or at least a reduction, we had a crazy fuel load by 17. Imagine having wood s altered across a field versus piling it for a bonfire. It is common to see 12, 14, 18 foot high brush here. I’m scared to push it with the dozer as I don’t know if I’m driving off a cliff or not.
Bottom line, it’s going to burn, the question is how crazily you want it to burn. It’s like the old Napa Auto Parts commercial, you can pay me now or you can pay me later.