Nowadays the increasing inadequate maintenance of rural areas poses, among all, a crucial add-on to the risk of fires. Deserted fields with wild grass, bushes and woods make up for a large amount of burnable vegetation that in some cases is even bigger than the forest itself. Fires in such wilderness pose a serious threat to populated areas just next to it. This is why scientists and fire experts prefer to use the term Wildfires instead of Forest Fires.

Not just wilderness! In addition to causing significant damage to ecosystems and wildlife, WILDFIRES can potentially cause serious damage to property and put lives at risk. They can burn for days or even weeks and spread to thousands of acres. Large and long-lasting WILDFIRES are capable of consuming millions of acres of vegetated area, and scorching the rich organic soil on the forest floor, which serves as a large reservoir for carbon.

WILDFIRES are actually supposed to be beneficial to certain natural landscapes, clearing underbrush in forests and triggering the release of seeds in some plant species. Such benefits have been incorporated into the practice of “prescribed fires” that are indeed meant to clean the wilderness. However, in the past years, such a practice has progressively lost application since it was thought it could increase the risk of spreading unwanted fire, but it turned out to increase the vulnerability of wilderness to fires.