The sad wildfires in spain made me wonder this, especially as climate change means there’ll be more fires. I know groups like disabled people and their families are slower to get out, causing risk. But is it more that the fire is too fast, or that some people just don’t leave fast enough?
Just wondering what could be done to reduce deaths.
One bit of difference between forests in the UK and those in the western US and parts of Australia is that the forests in the second group included fires as part of the lifecycle of the forest. The release of seeds occurs after a fire and some trees are able to resist fires of a certain temperature.
The problem is that white settlers saw the fires as bad, doing a really good job at preventing forest fires. The problem with doing that is that the forests now have a far higher energy density than they were evolved for, so modern fires are a lot worse.