Post #4289147

How people use the land can also make wildfires conditions significantly worse, said Robert Field, a fire and climate researcher at Columbia University in New York.  In both France and Spain, abandoned farmland and a shift away from cattle, which graze on plants, might have played a role in fueling the fire. In France, the wildfire outbreak was centered in the Landes de Gascogne, a coastal region with an abundance of planted pine forests. Research on wildfires worldwide has shown that timber plantations like these can be twice as flammable as natural forests.  “I don’t think it’s an issue of firefighting capacity or investment,” Field said. “It’s fundamentally an issue of landscape management in the face of global warming.”