Often in reading survivalist material, one comes across instructions on how to use fire in a camping or retreat setting for cooking, cleaning, sterilizing, and the like. There is also quite a bit of information on how to protect ones self and belongings from the threat of fire, particularly wildfires. Much of the information I have found is good information, and will be useful in a The End of the World as We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) scenario. The purpose of this writing is not to further expound on those things most of us already know, but rather to use us to think about the other ways fire will impact our lives during TEOTWAWKI and look at some possibilities for actions that we should take now.
Without question, fire has played a vital role in shaping every ecosystem in existence on every land today. That being said, it has to be true that fire, or the lack of fire, will continue to change and/or maintain the lands and ecosystems available into, and beyond TEOTWAWKI.
For centuries fires that started naturally, usually by lightning, and even fires started by native populations, burned unchecked across the landscape. These fires were generally of low intensity because fire and the fuels they consumed were in harmony due to their long and virtually unhindered relationship. Nature was in sync. Around the turn of the 20th century, people began to see fire as a bad thing that was destroying timber, crops, and occasionally buildings. With that mindset, and with the rapid advancement of technology, man’s capability to contain and control wildfire improved greatly, and we began to save the precious resources once doomed to destruction. Unfortunately, it was a long time before it occurred to many people that fire is as necessary to the health and vitality of these areas as rain and sunlight.
Fast-forward a hundred years and the results of our extinguishment efforts are clear. Many forests and wild lands have gone without God’s built-in cleaning for far too long, and now the fuels available to burn generate high-intensity, fast-burning fires that human ingenuity cannot seem to compete with. I have managed wildfire on both coasts, and numerous places in between, and I want to assure you that this situation exists in many, if not most, of the wild lands, in every state in our Country today, and therefore, should be a consideration in locating and maintaining a retreat or GOOD location.
All wild lands are going to burn one way or another. We can allow (or mimic, through the use of prescribed fire) naturally occurring fires to burn, or we can exclude fire from an area until the conditions finally come together to generate a conflagration that humans cannot control.
Read the remainder of Forest Fires and TEOTWAWKI.
