dilluns, 1 d’agost del 2016

a short wildfires analysis

And another post arrived, this one in English.

Last month I enjoyed writting about wildfires andhow is burning in Boreal woods as Canadian or Russian also causes and how to arrange these in our land due to our extinction system and people development. Today is only a remembering of all of these points but also I will add some new data of last service.

By the first, only I have to say than climate change is affecting burning cycles in zones where fire were developed in a short space of time. In Canadian and  Russian woods the Spring was lasting until June, and snowmelt maintained the humidity in land and the vegetable layer. Nowadays it has changed. Boreal Spring is shorter and the sun arrives some weeks before at the landscape, therefore heat dries this vegetable layer and in a few weeks this material has a high imflamability. Wildfires are a common thing there too,
In Canada this type of wildfires could be managed with a few number of people like one or two firemen groups. Now, situation is changing, fire can burn more days and the probability to arrive to an habited area is more easy. Fort McMurray wildfire affected to a recently developed zone due to an oil extraction area.
Here in Catalunya our final risk causes are different. This year and some before Winter has been dry, the rain has not been viewed for a many weeks and last days of Spring the rain has visited us with short episodes with more or less liters. In the end of May it rained and it returned in the middle of June, but it was not enough to avoid the pair of important wildfires we have had.

Rocallaura is different, in the cause of the first episode and the cause of the second one. Sant Feliu Sassera, Blanes, Olivella and Pallaresos were burned with high intensity, and flames more than 10m long. All of these are typical July wildfires (in a generical view).
Rocallaura Incendi del 23 de juny de 2016
Rocallaura incendi del 19 de juliol de 2016
The first Rocallaura's episode was produced by a fire cracker, and it develops with a good advance in the front side, however flanks were easy to be attacked by firefighter groups. Here the exceptionality was that 25 days after the first fire, started a new wildfire inside the perimeter. It was not a negligence of firefighters, there were many trees and ancient vegetacion buried because more than twenty years ago a farmer left them under land when he conditioned a field. Now, the wildfire heat and flames has burned this organic layer and creating a coal oven.

Well, I have enjoyed, probably I will repeat next week talking about mediterranian wildfires, and the causes of actual fires that started last century.