A lot of people have been moving into forested zones, and it's likely fire will be a danger for them. We want to get in touch with nature, but there are regular cycles of fire in nature, and houses aren't natural. When we ignore issues like coastal erosion, wildfires, floodzones, etc, we gamble. Over the past few decades, there has been a lot building in places our ancestors didn't build up for sensible reasons. I was concerned about erosion, moving to the seaside, and checked maps and elevations, as well as local history. I'm 18 m above the storm tide line and set back on a hill in a cluster of older houses, so in my lifetime, the house should be secure. But there are local houses with better views of the water that were built in the 1990s that are already uninsurable and collapsing, bit by bit. Nature has a way of slapping down humans who decide they're above it.
Most fires are started by lightning, but a lot are from human activity - unattended campfires, sparks from vehicles, careless smokers, etc. Some are criminal, but not very many, in the big picture. We have a shortage of rain, to the point where streams are no longer flowing, and rivers I would normally kayak on are far too shallow. It's always dry here in August, but this past winter we had very little snow, so we're extra vulnerable to the short hot and dry period.
For me, this month is odd, as it rarely gets extremely dry along the coast. In the normal run of things, we are in a rainy zone. But as
@WhistlingBadger noted, pine resins are a fire hazard, and this is a land of pines. When Europeans arrived, it was mixed pine and deciduous forests, but the young red oaks the neighbours and I have planted are the only examples of a once common tree to be found for a solid distance. The forests look wild and natural, but the hardwood has been gone for a long time. We have softwood pines feeding a massive toilet paper factory up the road.
For now, we have restrictions on forest use, hiking trails, camping and an outside fire ban. As the sun rises this morning, a massive fog bank is rolling around, and that should make the grass a bit less crunchy. But that'll only extend a few km inland. What will this fire season bring? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
