Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
13
Fire Management of Mediterranean
Landscapes
The hazardous mediterranean climate, highly flammable vegetation, and rugged terrain, all
important elements of fire behavior, become problems only in the presence of people. People
recreate and build homes in the mediterranean wildlands because of the delightful climate and
will continue to do so as long as space is available. People start most fires, and their mere
presence tends to warp fire suppression strategies because fire agencies must protect lives and
property threatened by fires rather than “back off” and build fire lines around fire perimeters
.
Carl C. Wilson (
1979a
), Chief of Division of Forest and Fire Research,
USFS/Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station
Human presence in mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions has differed mark-
edly in the length of human occupation; however, there are remarkable similarities
in how early inhabitants altered fire regimes and how modern societies deal with
the fire hazard. Here we draw on the history of human impacts outlined in the
regional reviews (see
Chapters 4
-
8), the problems created by nineteenth and
twentieth century management practices, and conclude with twenty-first century
problems and future options. As discussed throughout this topic, MTC ecosystems
are highly fire adapted but, as illustrated here, contemporary societies have not
fully adapted to balancing fire hazard risk and resource needs on these landscapes.
Early Human Fire Use and Impacts
Fire has been a widely utilized management tool throughout the history of
humankind (Pyne
1995
). Early hunter-gatherers utilized fire to manage for plant
and animal resources. Fire also played an important role in early domestication of
crops as clearing off woody or other perennial vegetation would have required fire
on many landscapes. With domestication of livestock it was an important tool for
increasing forage.
Early human history has been very different in the five MTC regions. In the
Cape region of South Africa and the Mediterranean Basin there has been a
presence of modern humans for more than 100 000 yrs (Deacon
1983
,
1992
;
Carbonell
et al.
1995
). Throughout this period humans had the capacity to utilize
fire and, considering the limited tools early humans had for manipulating their
environments, it seems inescapable that they would have actively used fire when
