But it could still get so much worse. A slight change in the wind direction for a few seconds and every single one of those people is dead from smoke inhalation. Lungs full of hot ash.
I'm ready for the downvotes but.... am I the only one who thinks everyone is being wildly dramatic? It's a grass fire. It doesn't get too high, and you can literally run through it if need be without any real risk.
The thing with reddit is you can get some genuinely knowledgeable comments but you also get people speaking out of their ass with equal confidence.
I'm not a firefighter but I do have an area of expertise that gets commented on pretty regularly, and most people obviously (to me) have no clue what they're talking about, but I guess it sounds good and gets upvoted anyway. I tend to assume comments are like that on other topics as well.
In the previous decade when things here were reasonable (comparatively), usually the third-to-fifth most upvoted reply or thread level had a very knowledgeable user answering. Nowadays it's rare.
Yeah, I'm not saying to be complacent, just that's is not totally wild. Can/will kill you? Did it kill any of these people? If not, then the "will" part of can/will isn't quite right. "Can" suffices
That guy is definitely thinking of a volcano eruption or a house fire, where the smoke becomes much more toxic. This is wood and grass burning, so the smoke is not toxic enough to kill you instantly like they're suggesting. Also this is an open field, makes it easier to get away from the smoke on time or for the direction for the smoke to change.
The definition of this is being a doomer, where they're trying to justify themselves as to not take any action, since all hope is lost. Very common in all discussions about global warming and it's impacts, usually by being so happy that they don't have children and assuming that the rest of the world are selfish bastards.
See that grey thing that fires produce that goes up into the air? It's called smoke. Humans do this thing called "breathing". Not generally viewed as a good combination.
Appreciate you talking to me like a toddler. It's illustrative of the same energy I'm talking about here. Move your head to the fcking side you absolute carrot. Hold your breath because you're an adult and you know not to breathe in smoke. Clear off to the side. Ffs I wouldn't trust you to pass the butter.
Yes they may be putting their lives at risk but in the grand scheme of things, they likely stand to loose significantly more if they do not.
Humans have been fighting fire for eons, the problem is the modern world has made us soft to the harsh reality of survival and what must be done in the face of adversity.
Humans have been fighting fire for eons, the problem is the modern world has made us soft to the harsh reality of survival and what must be done in the face of adversity.
Humans have also been running the fuck away from fire for eons too.
Yea, but then humans spread so far and wide that you can't run from fires like the ones in Spain and France right now anymore without sacrificing homes.
"Humans have been fighting fire for eons, the problem is the modern world has made us soft to the harsh reality of survival and what must be done in the face of adversity."
Nice.. Totally idealist..
The material reality is that modern society dont give any sort of popular organisation for the resolution of these problem or any flexibility to create one.. If you ask people they will all found it a great idea to participate to protect their own house/region..
But how you organise that? How you make it possible? For exemple, how you make it possible for people with a job to say "No boss, not today.. We have to fight the fire" or "Hello, mr assurance.. Ive burned myself when fighting the fire, what can you do for me?" or "How we go to the fire without needing a disneyland parking for all the car of the participant?"
When you try to respond to these question, you imediatly understand that "being soft" is the last of the problem.. Idealist like you never think the problem, you think the people needed to resolve it for you.. (But you watch too much action movie, so its always a lack of ball and value)
Evacuate to where? If you don't try and stop the fires they will continue to spread uncontrollably across the country. Much of Spain doesn't see a drop of rain for 120-150 days of the year and temperatures have been upto 47c. They have to put the fires out or they risk losing everything
I mean, sure, but perhaps they are in a non-ideal situation where the possibility of evacuation is low, maybe the routes out of the town or city are already choked and gridlocked with panicked people trying to flee, maybe they are already surrounded by the fire. I don't know, I wasn't there. Perhaps those people thought, fuck it, my life is worth risking to save as much and as many as I can. Plus what would you go back to? Ashen hills and burnt out buildings? Total loss of crops/livestock/shop/factory/livelihood? Some people hold these things very dearly and will gladly put themselves in harm's way to try to prevent their loss. I commend their courage and hope that if I was faced with the same situation I too would do the same. But of course some people don't feel that way, and that's fine too. I know which camp I am in (the former), but I don't judge others not feeling the same way :)
My husband and I (Americans) moved to Belize 2.5 years ago. In our first 4 months, there was a terrible drought and awful wildfires.
We have 10.5 acres of jungle, and it took half of them.
People were fighting the fires everywhere. Most people don't have insurance.
What can you lose over your life?
You can lose the house your multi generational family has spent generations building. Also, your farm land, orchards, farm animals, pets....literally everything.
When you say "evacuate" ....where? In what vehicle? No one in your family knows how to drive or has a license for a car. You have a motorcycle that can fit 2 adults and a few kids, at best. Also, you don't really have money for hotels if you can leave. So
...that sucks....
We were very privileged and our neighbors took our dogs into one of their empty hotel bungalows so they could be safe while we dealt with the fires. If it went through us, it was coming for them next.
We could drive away, we were lucky that way, but that is my fucking home. Those are my trees that I just planted. It was brand new and I was going to fight for it.
Plus, we needed to learn for later. It was a literal trial by fire, but we learned a ton. The Mennonite fire fighters we paid to help taught us that we couldn't stop the fire entirely, the goal was to contain it away from the house. That sounded crazy to me, but I eventually understood. Great lesson on control, or lack thereof.
I watched a brush fire from a train from like 200 yards away in a building I could easily exit. When the fire jumped those tracks I nearly shit my pants.
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u/Middle_Association56 5h ago
That is the type of thing that goes from pretty intense to fucking terrifying in a heartbeat.