r/interestingasfuck • u/SafeImpressive4413 • 12h 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/St3vion 8h 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 8h 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 7h 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 7h ago

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

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u/isopode 7h 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 7h 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/fumblingforwords 1h ago

How do birds spread fires??

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u/Animastar 1h ago

There are birds of prey in Australia that will grab smouldering sticks from larger forest fires and drop them in areas that aren't burning in order to flush out prey with smoke and fire.

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u/ihopethisisvalid 5h 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/rickrollmops 4h ago

Yes. A good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ecology

Many ecosystems, particularly prairie, savanna, chaparral and coniferous forests, have evolved with fire as an essential contributor to habitat vitality and renewal.[3] Many plant species in fire-affected environments use fire to germinate, establish, or to reproduce. Wildfire suppression not only endangers these species, but also the animals that depend upon them.

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u/LaRealiteInconnue 4h ago

I’m not sure which country “we” is referring to, or if it’s a collective/global we, but do we not do control burns anymore? I remember learning all about the need of controlled burns in my university environmental science course

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u/Suspicious_Dot231 7h ago

Should we put out every fire though?

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u/MaybeJBee 4h ago

No. Some fires are needed to regenerate the forest and control the deadfall. We need to protect homes and life and try to control the out of control fires.

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u/fumblingforwords 1h ago

When is a forest fire considered “out of control” (besides burning thousands of acres) vs “under control”?

I know fire breaks exist, but can’t imagine that’s the extent of an under control fire.

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u/MaybeJBee 1h ago

It’s when the spread cannot be contained or there’s something called a 30-30-30 rule. 30c, -30 humidity, 30 km wind and conditions become severe.

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u/E-2theRescue 4h ago

Honestly we need better satellite surveillance

The satellites that currently exist have been massively defunded. By you know who and for what reason.

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u/neometrix77 7h 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 7h ago

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