Australian fire breaks in action

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by hypersonicelf
image showing Australian fire breaks in action

IronProdigyOfficial on October 18th, 2018 at 06:40 UTC »

That's insane how well it blocked off the fire spreading.

Fenizrael on October 18th, 2018 at 08:17 UTC »

For anybody curious, these are controlled burns. The Australian bush is prone to bushfire, and there are a few species that have actually evolved to rely on these fires (Pyrophytic). Eucalypts are a great example of this because they release oils that encourage bushfires (Edit: The fire in this video looks like there may also be something else flammable in addition. Eucalyptus still goes up quickly, but it’s hard to find any good videos that show it).

Since Eucalypts are probably the most common tree you will see here in Australia, you might understand why that suddenly becomes a problem when they start dropping branches absolutely everywhere. The solution is to actively encourage this burning in a controlled manner before it gets out of hand and you end up with fires like the Black Saturday Bushfires (compared to the 2017 California Wildfire ).

Fire breaks act to create a barrier zone that has already been burned, so that if a huge fire breaks out elsewhere later on then it won’t unexpectedly spread out of control into dangerous areas.

TonyTheGeo on October 18th, 2018 at 08:56 UTC »

Good example of a controlled burn. The thin lines are a good vehicle width, the thick lines are perhaps 4 times that. The prevailing wind direction on the day controls the burn, together with the rain immediately before and predicted.

The updraft is amazing.

Big burns create their own weather patterns, trigger thunderstorms etc.