Time to pour cold water on burning issue

We are not in a war against fire. ‘Good’ fire is an asset in the wild, and hi-tech urban fire-fighting is only a quick fix, says Stephen J. Pyne.

THERE is too much of the wrong kind of fire, too little of the right kind, and too much overall. The wrong kinds include the blaze that killed 19 firefighters in Arizona last week, and the ones that put southeast Asia under a pall, that incinerate communities, befoul ecosystems with effluents, and trash biotas by burning at the wrong times and intensities. The right kinds perform an ecological service by burning landscapes properly — and stay in their place.

Paradoxically, there is not enough fire on the planet; but, thanks to fossil fuels, there is too much combustion. The developed world has too few good fires, and the developing world has too many bad ones.