1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:08,440
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brainstufflaurin boglabam

2
00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:13,960
Speaker 1: here of forest fires started by humans or nature, whipped

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,960
Speaker 1: by wind and fueled by dry brush a curb one

4
00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:19,960
Speaker 1: hundred thousand times a year in the US, consuming an

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,959
Speaker 1: average of five point eight million acres or two point

6
00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:27,319
Speaker 1: three million hectors of land. These fires destroy everything that

7
00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:31,560
Speaker 1: can't escape their path. But although, of course the loss

8
00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:34,839
Speaker 1: of life and property from out of control fires is terrible,

9
00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:41,639
Speaker 1: controlled burns are actually two hour and our ecosystem's advantage.

10
00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,519
Speaker 1: Since two thousand and one, the US Forest Service has

11
00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:48,160
Speaker 1: had a national Fire Plan to address the tinderbox conditions

12
00:00:48,159 --> 00:00:51,879
Speaker 1: caused by decades of fire suppression, drought, and scores of

13
00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:56,520
Speaker 1: residential developments neighboring forests. It is a multi pronged approach

14
00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:59,680
Speaker 1: that includes fighting fires by land and air, as well

15
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:04,720
Speaker 1: as controlled burns. These deliberately set and controlled fires are

16
00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:07,959
Speaker 1: designed to take place under specific conditions and confine the

17
00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:13,000
Speaker 1: flames to a predetermined area. The idea behind controlled burns

18
00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:15,560
Speaker 1: is to reduce the fuel that could feed a wild

19
00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:20,880
Speaker 1: forest fire should one start under uncontrolled circumstances. This dangerous

20
00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,760
Speaker 1: scenario has become all too common in the American West,

21
00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:27,040
Speaker 1: where peat and drought have turned entire sections of forest

22
00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,160
Speaker 1: into kindling, ready to be sparked by blightening or lit

23
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:35,320
Speaker 1: cigarettes and fanned by strong winds. Of the seven hundred

24
00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:38,039
Speaker 1: and fifty million acres or three hundred million hectors of

25
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:41,959
Speaker 1: forest in North America, fifty seven percent is privately owned

26
00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:46,720
Speaker 1: and becoming increasingly developed for residential use. This means wild

27
00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:50,600
Speaker 1: fires are increasingly likely to harm people in property, hence

28
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:54,440
Speaker 1: the need to prevent them. So today let's talk about

29
00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:57,440
Speaker 1: how controlled burns work and how they can actually help

30
00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:02,320
Speaker 1: a forest. In general. The boundaries of a controlled burn

31
00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:06,280
Speaker 1: include natural fire guards such as streams, and human made

32
00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:10,520
Speaker 1: fire guards such as tilled soil or gravel roadways. Before

33
00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:13,960
Speaker 1: burn takes place, weather must be taken into account. A

34
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,760
Speaker 1: too windy and sparks could spread to unintended areas. Too

35
00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:21,480
Speaker 1: wet and fuel won't burn a Most controlled burns take

36
00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:23,680
Speaker 1: place when the wind is five to fifteen miles per

37
00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:26,520
Speaker 1: hour that's eight to twenty four kilometers per hour and

38
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:30,840
Speaker 1: coming from a consistent direction. In addition to notifying neighbors

39
00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: in local enforcement agencies of the burn, in many cases,

40
00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:37,360
Speaker 1: those agencies require a permit. A local fire department should

41
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:39,440
Speaker 1: be on the scene in case the fire burns out

42
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:45,040
Speaker 1: of control. Controlled burns begin by lighting a backfire using

43
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,080
Speaker 1: a flammable liquid such as gasoline, along the down wind

44
00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:52,359
Speaker 1: perimeter of the prescribed area. The fire will then burn slowly,

45
00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:56,120
Speaker 1: usually with low flames because it's moving against the wind.

46
00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:00,600
Speaker 1: Additional flanking fires may be lit a long boundary parallel

47
00:03:00,639 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 1: to the wind. Finally, a fire is set along the

48
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:08,720
Speaker 1: boundary opposite the downwind perimeter. The fires burn toward each other,

49
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:11,680
Speaker 1: consuming all the fuel in their path, and dying out

50
00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:17,160
Speaker 1: upon meeting. By carefully controlling the burn, we can reap

51
00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:21,040
Speaker 1: the benefits of forest fires while mitigating the risk. Forest

52
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:25,320
Speaker 1: fires are a natural and necessary part of ecosystems. Even

53
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:29,520
Speaker 1: healthy forests contain dead trees and decaying plant matter. When

54
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,160
Speaker 1: a fire turns them to ashes, nutrients return to the

55
00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:37,040
Speaker 1: soil instead of remaining captive in that old vegetation. And

56
00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,600
Speaker 1: when fire rages through dry underbrush, it clears thick growth

57
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:43,840
Speaker 1: so sunlight can reach the forest floor and encourage new

58
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,880
Speaker 1: native plants to spring up. Fire freese these plants from

59
00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:52,000
Speaker 1: the competition delivered by invasive weeds and eliminates diseases or

60
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:54,320
Speaker 1: droves of insects that may have been causing damage to

61
00:03:54,360 --> 00:04:00,440
Speaker 1: old growth. Wildflowers begin to bloom abundantly. Most young, healthy

62
00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:03,320
Speaker 1: trees are resilient enough to survive a forest fire and

63
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:05,680
Speaker 1: will soon have a growth spurt thanks to flames that

64
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:10,280
Speaker 1: thin light banning canopies above, and scientists report that young

65
00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:12,960
Speaker 1: growth forests recovering from a fire are home to more

66
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:18,239
Speaker 1: diverse species in both plants and animals. Although some animals

67
00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:22,240
Speaker 1: are injured or die from forest fires, most survive. The

68
00:04:22,279 --> 00:04:24,600
Speaker 1: majority of animals can smell a fire even when it's

69
00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:28,520
Speaker 1: quite small from miles away. Some animals, such as deer

70
00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:31,640
Speaker 1: and bear will flee the area, while others like insects

71
00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:34,039
Speaker 1: and small mammals will burrow into the ground until the

72
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:38,880
Speaker 1: flames pass. And even though some animals may be displaced

73
00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:42,200
Speaker 1: during a forest fire, the scorched earth will eventually provide

74
00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:45,160
Speaker 1: an ideal new home for others, one that's full of

75
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:50,200
Speaker 1: thicker vegetation fed by that nutrient rich soil. Forest fires

76
00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 1: can create and all you can eat buffet and more

77
00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:55,920
Speaker 1: than forty different kinds of insects, for example, will eat

78
00:04:55,960 --> 00:04:58,920
Speaker 1: their way through fire ravaged territory as they burrow into

79
00:04:58,960 --> 00:05:02,880
Speaker 1: the wood that remain. There's even a species of beetles

80
00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:05,760
Speaker 1: that waits for forest fires, using heat sensors to come

81
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 1: in from miles away to eat injured trees. These fattened

82
00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:12,599
Speaker 1: insects then become food themselves as birds hunt for a

83
00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:16,320
Speaker 1: feast all their own. The shrubs and grasses fertilized by

84
00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:20,440
Speaker 1: fire created nutrients will grow lushly as soon deer and

85
00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,599
Speaker 1: other grazing wildlife like mice will make a meal of them.

86
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:28,159
Speaker 1: Then predators, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, wolves, and bears will

87
00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:32,440
Speaker 1: get there full of prey too. Years later, when the

88
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 1: forest's growth has created a dark and damp interior framed

89
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:39,280
Speaker 1: by a leafy overhead canopy, the forest's remaining residents will

90
00:05:39,279 --> 00:05:43,360
Speaker 1: move back in deep forest plants like mosses and lichens,

91
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:46,760
Speaker 1: and animals like spotted owls and woodland caribou will once

92
00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:51,640
Speaker 1: again call it home. There are other options to get

93
00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,160
Speaker 1: similar results, like hand and mechanical thinning, which is the

94
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:59,320
Speaker 1: logging of small diameter trees to reduce tree density and underbrush.

95
00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:04,039
Speaker 1: Thinning is more expensive and doesn't always return nutrients to

96
00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:09,920
Speaker 1: the environment. Take, for example, an experiment at Tall Timbers

97
00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:14,000
Speaker 1: Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida that lasted nearly four decades

98
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:17,920
Speaker 1: and provided telling results. The twenty three acre swath of

99
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,440
Speaker 1: land that's about nine hectores wasn't allowed to burn during

100
00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:26,000
Speaker 1: that time, plant diversity fell by ninety percent, and one

101
00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:29,960
Speaker 1: species of bird, a type of woodpecker, disappeared entirely. In

102
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:38,039
Speaker 1: order to thrive, this ecosystem, like many others, needed fire.

103
00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,520
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article how does forest

104
00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:44,359
Speaker 1: fire benefit Living Things? On housetiff works dot com, written

105
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:47,440
Speaker 1: by Lareel Dove. Brainstuff is production of Ihart Radio in

106
00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 1: partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by

107
00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:53,039
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the

108
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:56,040
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

109
00:06:56,040 --> 00:07:02,679
Speaker 1: favorite shows,