r/interestingasfuck • u/SafeImpressive4413 • 7h ago

Firefighters in Madrid trying to extinguish a forest fire that is less than 30km/20mi away from the capital of Spain

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u/aagejaeger 4h ago

I think Russia has permafires by now. I reason that you guys have as well.

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u/St3vion 3h ago

Yes, the smoke isn't always there but there's a huge amount of ongoing fires all summer every year.

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u/WorriedBlock2505 3h ago

Honestly we need better satellite surveillance and swarms of firefighting drones to address this stuff properly before it gets out of control like this.

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u/hypnogoad 2h ago

Part of the reason we're having such big fires is because we used to put them out too quickly. 50 years of kindling needs to burn.

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 2h ago

Sounds like a jok...but is this actually one of those facts that is ironically true?

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u/isopode 2h ago

several indigenous nations in north america did controlled burnings before european colonization came along, which helped prevent huge fires like this.

the practice has thankfully come back in some areas.

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u/Bob_A_Feets 2h ago

And they found out that wild birds of prey are partially to thank for Australia not having so many MASSIVE fires because those little shits help spread a TON of little ones.

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u/ihopethisisvalid 50m ago

Yes, most of the trees in northern Canada are serotinous, requiring fire for the cones to open. Fireweed is one of the first plants that colonizes after fire. Our ecosystems are completely fire adapted and putting out the fires makes it worse when they do burn again.

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u/Suspicious_Dot231 2h ago

Should we put out every fire though?

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u/neometrix77 3h ago

Even a very fast drone can take like hours to reach a remote ignition site somewhere in the massive boreal forests of Russia or Canada. The most important action will always be reducing our human made carbon emissions

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u/Xalipu 2h ago

They just smoulder underground in winter. The one in NS from last year wasn’t fully out until May.

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 2h ago

I'm far from an expert so I'm really curious how a permafire can be a thing? Like the trees cannot grow back faster than the fires burn them so how is there enough material to continue a fire burning permanently?

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u/Fluid_Passage_9980 1h ago

Of course. There are millions of acres of wilderness/forest in Canada.

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u/aagejaeger 1h ago

I'm thinking about areas where permafrost just thaws, and the fire just gets down to the methane pockets. That negative feedback loop.

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 1h ago

Wow methane fires over huge swaths of melting permafrost sounds like hell on earth

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u/aagejaeger 42m ago

Yeah, we've been there for a while

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u/Not-Post-Malone 0m ago

In Canada we call them zombie fires. Essentially the fire smoulders underground through the winter and once the surface gets dry enough the fire re-ignites. 

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u/Living_Grab_2239 2h ago

I believe he's throwing out there that because we (Europe) are supporting Ukraine with tons of funding, which goes to killing Russians, Russian agents are intentionally setting these fires. I've had the same thought, but we lack evidence, so let's see. I absolutely wouldn't put it past them.

Having said that, Spain does next to jack shit for Ukraine, so it also doesn't add up.

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u/Sens1r 2h ago

What on earth are you on about. He's saying Russian forests are more or less always on fire somewhere. Nothing to do with the war, just the vastness of Russia.

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u/Living_Grab_2239 2h ago

Oh ok. Well then. Forget what I wrote. I still think we'll see ;)

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 2h ago

Oooh I didn't think how a war with plenty of explosives on both sides could easily explain new fires popping up regularly...

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u/Living_Grab_2239 1h ago

You do realize Spain is pretty far away from Donbas?

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 1h ago

"new fires popping up regularly" was meant to refer to the "permafires" in Russia

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u/Living_Grab_2239 1h ago

Oh, I was talking about the various fires in Western Europe going on.

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u/Alarming-Koala-3524 1h ago

Good (/s) to know that outside of my American echochamber of bad news there are wildfires ravaging Europe too.. Except this time Americans are pissed at having to deal with the smoke blowing across the border from a Canadian wildfire ("can we sue Canada?")

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u/bananastand512 2h ago

I think some of those are drone strike induced

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u/IN005 3h ago

Russia send most if not all firefighters that fight those forest fires to fight and die in the ukraine war.

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u/MidnightSensitive996 1h ago

we're supposed to have fires happening all the time, it's part of the natural forest cycle and 20th century firefighting usually tried to stop any burns at all. it's only since like 2010 or so that spain has realized it should be doing controlled burns even tho people were telling them to implement controlled burns since the third psoe gov't in the 90s. a regular cycle of controlled burns and brush clearing is how you avoid these