But it is also a problem when it is removed from wildlands that have adapted to it, because its absence can be as ecologically significant as its presence. It is certainly a problem when it burns freely through cities. We cannot survive without fire we just need it in the right ways. But these fires are fixable only because we construct their settings. We can design cities that prevent fires from spreading from building to building. We can build machines that reduce combustion to its essence and contain it. Some fire problems do have technical fixes. There is no solution to fire, because there are many kinds of fires, and they change with their context. While we did not invent fire (it has been integral to Earth for more than 400 million years), we exercise a monopoly over its controlled use.Īll of this makes fire universal, difficult to grasp, and tricky to wrestle into manageable shape. It is also our signature act as a species, the one thing we do that no other creature does. In this way, it indexes the state of an ecosystem. It takes its character from its context.įire integrates everything around it – sun, wind, rain, plants, terrain, roofing, fields, and everything people do, and don’t do. The reason is simple: fire is not a creature nor a substance nor a geophysical event like a hurricane or an earthquake. The paradox of fire stems from its role as the great shape-shifter of natural processes. What to do about it depends on how we characterize the problem.

Nearly every observer forecasts that this will continue over the coming years. Overall, the developed world has too few good fires, and the developing world has too many bad ones. Paradoxically, it is likely that there is not enough fire on the planet but, thanks to fossil fuels, there is certainly too much combustion.

Fire by Stephen J. Pyne