I've always maintained that one cannot fight violence with violence. Violence simply begets more violence. My analogy has always been that one cannot fight fire with fire, you fight it with water!
However, it appears I may have been wrong about fighting fire with fire...
Diane Southey, a good friend & botanist who's been studying bush fires in South Africa & Australia told me a story of a group of firefighters who were totally surrounded by a large bushfire and had no escape route.
They had pretty much given up hope and thought they were going to die, when one of them had a bright idea that saved their lives. He started a fire! A controlled fire...
By starting a controlled fire in the immediate vicinity, they managed to burn all the bush where they were. When the larger, more rampant fire finally reached their area, there was no fuel left to fuel the fire! They lived to tell the story.
What amazes me most is that this was not a 'learned' technique, it was an incredibly smart decision made under extreme duress!
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2 comments:
um...Henk?
Hate to tell you this, but this is not new?
My Dad taught me this when I was quite small... but then he was a forrester! ;) They often use this trick to contain runaway forest fires - work out which way the fire is moving, then sarifice a strip of plantation alongside a road or stream or cliff where you can burn it without letting it get away and you effectively enlarge the firebreak manyfold.
One of the items I always carry when I'm hiking is a lighter or matches - making your own "burnt patch" can definitely save you in a crisis.
Not sure when this happened, but I think you're right, it was a pretty long time ago!
What would be really interesting to know is whether it was before or after the technique of backburning you describe was discovered.
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