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Satellite view of haze from the Borneo Fires, September 22, 1997.
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Fires raging in Yellowstone, 1988.
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Normally peat forests help prevent global warming by absorbing large amounts of carbon. When peat burns, however, the carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. According to some estimates, carbon dioxide emissions from the recent fires exceeded the amount emitted by all of Europe in 1997.
Many Fires are Hugely Destructive
A huge blaze in Australia in 1994 devastated hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and besieged the city of Sydney. A few months earlier, the outskirts of Los Angeles were reduced to ashes by a series of enormous fires. The massive Yellowstone blaze forced many people to rethink what had been a near-universal acceptance of Smokey the Bear's goal of eliminating forest fires entirely. Scientists began to understand that the extensive damage was partly due to years of controlling periodic low-intensity fires. The resulting extreme "fuel" build-up made Yellowstone a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
Ecologists and conservationists have now come to recognize the importance and inevitability of periodic fires--fires that keep ecosystems in a constant state of change.
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