The wildfires in the United States are a force of nature that burn, destroy, and disturb the environment. Now that the wildfires are calming down this year and last year they are steadily becoming more of a force that creates a new environment, clears the decayed life, and is a balance pivotal part of nature.
Just like other weather disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, wildfires have a season to themselves, which start in July and end in October. That is four months of the year, so this season takes around one third of the year.
This year’s wildfire season is the calmest it has been in a very long time. It was not calm before due to the amount of burnable materials that were left to build up. Because the U.S Forest Service had used the money given by the United States government in 1905 to eliminate the fires very quickly in the earliest years of its formation. It was due to the policy that said that after a report of a wildfire it had to be contained and suppressed by 10 A.M. the next day.
The 10 AM policy allowed the potential damage that the wildfires could produce to steadily increase in the United States. Then when the wildfires were not contained, it allowed the wildfires to grow very big. The government was trying to combat wildfires in the wrong way because the burnable materials were not burned and instead kept harming the environment. This was a terrible decision by the United States government.
When the fires: Great Fire of 1919 and The ChinChaga Firestorm, were not contained it had an outstanding amount of burnable materials which led to the burning of many acres of land at the same time. And the loss of large amounts of the wilderness at the same time. The ChinChaga Firestorm during 1950 burned three million and five hundred thousand acres of land. Which lets the environment change and renew.
Now the amount of dry and rotten materials have been burned. So the wildfires have calmed down. It is because the wildfire season is the calmest. The amount of fires were only under fifty thousand in 2023, 1983, and 1984 and the amount of acres burned were under two million and five hundred thousand were only eight times except this year. This is the amount of times that the wildfire seasons have either burned so few acres or the amount of fires in the year has been this low.
Wildfires are an important part of nature, it destroys, it creates a new environment, and it lets new life grow.
In my opinion, wildfires are just as important as water. Water lets life live and flourish while fire let’s life renew and destroy the old in the wilderness.
