Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
fires raged throughout Spain, Italy and Greece. The public and politicians link fires with
land degradation, desertification and increased drought due to global warming. Whatever
the scientific reality, public and politicians certainly rate fires as a major natural hazard,
and a hazard which costs billions a year. Although the negative impacts of forest fires
have probably been exaggerated, it remains a significant environmental problem in
Mediterranean regions (Plate 26.4).
Fire has been a common experience throughout the Quaternary era (i.e. since 2 million
years BP) in the Mediterranean, and indeed many plants have had time to adapt to it.
Adaptation can take the form of thick, protective bark (e.g. the cork oak,
Quercus suber
),
or rapid regeneration after fire (e.g. esparto grass,
Stipa tenacissima
; dwarf fan palm,
Chamaerops humilis
; and many others), or by plants killed by fire but which regenerate
quickly from seed (e.g. Aleppo pine,
Pinus halepensis
; and rock roses,
Cistus
spp.).
Owing to high resin and oil contents, many plants are very flammable, and after the hot,
dry summer the plant material and dry litter can burn fiercely to reach 800° C. The hazard
increases with the age of the vegetation, and
maquis
over thirty years old is very
combustible.
Plate 26.4
Fire devastates thousands of hectares of
countryside in Mediterranean regions each year. This
fireburn has removed vegetation from a hillside on the
French Riviera.
Photo: Peter Smithson.
