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Comment by yoghurtwere

1 day ago

> Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never burned so badly.

Are you sure?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Landes_forest_fire

7 comments

yoghurtwere

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reco98gg  1 day ago

I responded to this elsewhere on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49065156

Basically they had no way to fight those fires at the time, as the article explains.

  • reco98gg  21 hours ago

    [Answering here to @applepearlime bc limits of my green acct]

    They do have firebreaks, paths for trucks to go in many places [1]. I've seen many.

    But you could argue they're not wide enough to actually break fire. And when I see videos of how tall and wide the flames are, I have no idea how wide they should be... It's a managed forest though, definitely looked after because economics interests (wood, tourism).

    [1] https://cnes.fr/geoimage/aquitaine-littoral-landais-massif-f...

    • bigfatkitten  18 hours ago

      > And when I see videos of how tall and wide the flames are, I have no idea how wide they should be...

      Up to 40km, depending on the wind. Embers can travel a long way.

  • applepearlime  1 day ago

    I can't say that I buy your argument.

    Either way, firebreaks and green firebreaks seem like they could be a reasonable mitigation approach, whatever the overall causes.

    Does anyone here know whether the Landes forest has good firebreaks? If not, does anyone here know why? I failed to find anything about it online.

    • gabaix  17 hours ago

      I grew up there. I used to bike along stretches of firebreaks between plots. These firebreaks are nowhere nearly enough. Trees are young, pine needles spread everywhere, and ground is sandy.

      The forest is a giant tinderbox.