Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fires per million acres
Under 1
1-5
6-10
11-20
20-40
Average annual number
of lightning fires reported
in forested areas
40-60
Over 60
FIGURE 11.1
The geography of lightning fires. Note that the Southwest is the national epicenter, with a secondary focus
in Florida. (From Schroeder, M.J. and Buck, C., Fire Weather , Government Printing Office, Washington, DC,
Agriculture Handbook 360, 1970.)
11.2 Humans and Fire in North America
This natural matrix, however, has evolved with people present. They carried fire with
them and used it to make their world more habitable. They used fire in hearths to cook,
heat, light, to work wood and stone, to produce smoke to ward off insects. They broadcast-
burned the landscape to help them hunt, freshen spring fodder, and assist with foraging.
They burned for wood rats along Colorado River tules and for deer amid pine steppes.
In this enterprise, they had biotic allies; the extinction of megafauna encouraged more
browse and pasture for fire, which further leveraged the power of the torch. They burned
pinyon ( Pinus edulis )-dominated landscapes to help harvest pine nuts. They burned small
plots for gardens. They used fire to signal, fire for ambush and war, fire for ceremony. And
they littered the landscapes they inhabited or traversed with campfires and the odd spark.
They kept a land ever ready to burn ever simmering with fire.3 3
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