this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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High temperatures are necessary for wildfire. Wet wood doesn't burn
Imagine you have a house plant. You don’t water it for 3 months and then light it with fire, does your room temperature need to be at 40°C for it to start burning?
That's a false comparison. You can't compare an indoor environment to the outdoors. Sunshine, temperature, clouds and precipitation are highly codependent outside
Imagine you have a garden/piece of nature. It doesn’t rain and you don’t water it for 3 months and then light it with fire, does your garden air temperature need to be at 40°C for it to start burning?
Are we talking past each other?
So knowing that, how is heat necessary (as you wrote) for wildfires again? Surely you’re not suggesting fires can start by themselves (the famous „natural cause“ myth)
Of course you can have a fire without high temperature. But high temperature is a decisive agent in causing wildfires, as it contributes to dry vegetation. Sure, it doesn't have to be 40 degrees, but there's a reason they don't happen in Winter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_fire_weather_index
Imagine you hang your clothes out to dry. It is 15 °C outside, but doesn't rain. After half a day you want to put it back in your drawer but it's still wet. Now imagine it is 40°C outside. Surprise, your clothes are completely dry after only half a day. Same goes for plants. My succulents can go three months in the winter without watering and still survive but when it is hot they will be completely dry after a few weeks.
I dunno man, kinda also depends on humidity which varies a lot in the Mediterranean. If you’re assuming relative humidity is the same for both conditions then sure. But if you’re trying to dry your clothes in hot, humid conditions, it will probably take longer than on dry winter days.
But you still don’t get my point. Its been hot all summer in Portugal. For 2-3 months, no rain (the important thing). Now it’s the third heat wave (as the article says), so isn’t everything that can evaporate already long evaporated? Obviously everything is ALREADY dry enough to burn and has been for weeks!
So if you tell people „ohh it will be five degrees cooler next week“, how does that make anything better?! It can be 0 degrees tomorrow, how would the fire care, if it still doesn’t rain or if the wind still fans the flames.
Maybe people will be even less careful with open fires / carelessly throwing away burning things because they have been told „heat‘s gone we’re good“. Especially problematic during dry periods in winter or spring. Can’t even see the dryness then. And if one claims (like the other user here) „wildfires in winter don’t happen“, that’s just wrong. If people are only „careful“ during crazy hot weather, because it’s communicated that way by the media and ONLY THEN when the fire already started in the first place, that’s a problem because it’s obviously far too late already. Can’t write headlines / show dramatic pictures and ultimately generate clicks and make money about fires that don’t exist yet right?
And remember, if lightning is not the cause, which is rare in Europe, but for example was responsible for the Canada fires this year (fun fact: they started in March, no heat required), it’s arson. No humans, no fires in Portugal, Rhodes, Siciliy. You could even argue that summer fires in these places aren’t even related to climate change, when average rain is 0 during June, July and August (that’s why so many tourists go there in the first place).
This turned out really long, enough for now.
Edit: also, aren’t some house plants like your succulents resistant against longer dry periods? Maybe they don’t like the high temperatures. 🤷🏻♂️