http://www.nbc12.com/story/16628164/cause-sought-for-deadly-fla-highway-pileup
Just this week we saw news reports roll in from the Gainesville, Florida area concerning a series of car crashes that cost 10 people their lives. The cause: Smoke on the highways that reduced visibility to zero from a nearby wild fire.
The severity of the smoke has been accredited to the smoldering embers in an area that has not been allowed to burn naturally in many years. The fire suppression led to an excessive buildup of fuels. These fuels were so dense that they could not get enough oxygen to burst into flames, therefore they sat and smoldered, producing a mass amount of dense smoke.
So what does this have to do with wildlife? The answer to this is two-fold. The first being that fire suppression also impacts species composition. As detritus builds up, animals better adapted to these conditions flourish, while others fall behind. This particular area of Florida burned naturally (and Native American induced) every several years in the time prior European settlement. While variation in burn cycle is natural, the current lack of burning is human induced.
Our second way in which these fires impact wildlife is how they affect the court of public opinion. After seeing headlines concerning "fire", "smoke", and "10 deaths" many will be more cautious to allow burning on both public and private lands. We already see this along highway 17 in South Carolina, where certain land owners are not allowed to burn their timber land due to the smoke produced.
Fire is an essential part of many southeastern ecosystems. Without these fires natural process get out of rhythm, and we see exceptional cases (like our fire near Gainesville, FL). If this fire were to convince more people that burning is a detriment to civilization, land managers could lose one of their most powerful tools. Only time will tell if this is the case, but I certainly hope it is not.
No comments:
Post a Comment