Roving Mars

[Johno]

I understand that your fire people aren't allowed to do what ours do when a big fire threatens property (which happens every year, so much so that summer is called "fire season").

Simple:

Wind direction: --->
F = fire
H = house under threat
. = unburnt bushland

F F . . . . . . . H H
F F . . . . . . . H H
F F . . . . . . . H H
                  ^
                  |
                  |

Set a controlled fire here and extinguish it when it gets near the house.  Once you have done that, go a little closer to the fire.  Repeat until you have an area of burned land that the fire can't cross (may be 10 metres, may be 5 km.  Depends how big the fire is, and how fast the wind blows).

Oh, and in Australia, most everyone in at-risk areas is a member of the volunteer bushfire brigade.

[Satanic Mechanic]

Yes we do that.  You make a fire to beat a fire.  It's all about containment.  I have had to go out to my friend's farm to burn acres around his house and shop in order to protect it from a field fire started by a combine.
Biggest problem is people plant junipers and arbor vitae too close (dry as hell) to the house around here.
Somethings I have done to protect my house and property against fire: my neighbor with a tractor disced a fireline around my property and I removed all the junipers and arbor vitae.

SM

[Johno]

Yeah, that's a problem here too.  Most of the time it's not deliberately planted, it's undergrowth that's been allowed to grow unchecked.  Around Sydney in wintertime, you can often see plumes of smoke as the National parks people set fire to areas of bushland (carefully, and one part at a time).  If they don't, it'll go up like a bomb during the fire season.  Oh, and most of the flora in this country relies on a fire every couple of years to reproduce.  Australian plants are tough.

[Simkid]

The problem some places in Canada are having is that we've had so many years of agressivly putting out ANY fire, that there is far more dead brush on the ground than is normal.  Basically, fires that would have been alot more controllable are spreading faster and burning more intensly because none of the material has been allowed to burn.

[Johno]

Yes, that's a problem.  It is accepted that any area of open bushland would naturally (without human intervention, due to lightning strikes etc) be burned at least once every five - ten years, so bushland that has not been burned in that time frame is considered a hazard.  If the bush is near enough to homes or businesses to threaten them, we deliberately set it alight as often as weather conditions allow.

Of course, we'd be fighting fires 24/7 in summer if we tried to control fires in open bush.  So we don't.  We look at "smoke jumpers" in other countries as an equal mix of hero and bloody idiot!

(burping baby again, so spelling/grammrar may be out)

[sparkmaster]

Of course, there's those stupid people that set fires in their back yards when we haven't had rain in a month...