FIRE can be a friend or a foe. Fire can rejuvenate a landscape or devastate it. Large fires can develop into extremely destructive forces very difficult to control. One example of the widespread destructive fury generated by fire is what took place in Indonesia in 1997. In that year bushfires ravaged the country, causing immense damage to the land, people’s health, and the economy. And devastating smoke from those fires spread to neighboring countries—eight in all—affecting an estimated 75 million people. Reports indicate that 20 million were treated for such conditions as asthma, emphysema, and cardiovascular diseases as well as eye and skin problems. In Singapore, pollution rose to ominous levels. The city was blanketed by smoke. “We are all prisoners in our homes,” lamented one resident, afraid to venture out of her air-conditioned house. On the worst days, people could not see the sun through the haze. The following year, 1998, saw 8,000 residents of British Columbia, Canada, forced to leave their homes as an inferno rapidly approached. That fire was just one of almost a thousand that raged throughout Canada that year—115 of which were at some point considered to be out of control. One fire in northern Alberta, Canada, consumed 90,000 acres [35,000 ha] of forest. A resident remarked: “It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. There was this humongous black cloud hanging over the community.”
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 05:01:38 +0000
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