StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

:Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Manmade Hazards and Disasters – Wildfires Name: Institution: Causes of wildfires Wildfires or forest fires are natural environmental hazards that are caused by both natural and human activities. While wildfires may be considered as a cause of air pollution, these fires also provide a natural means of elimination of dead vegetation…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER92.5% of users find it useful
:Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample ":Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires"

Download file to see previous pages

Furthermore, some wildfires are setup knowingly while others, mostly in rare cases are due to sheer bad luck. For example, a speeding train’s wheel on the rail track could spark, and that is all it takes to start the fire. With such an occurrence, the spark will ignite a flame, and with the help of moving winds in the forests, that ignition will start the flame, which in turn will result in a fire, of which would have been catalyzed by the moving winds. Once wildfires are in motion, they are unstoppable.

They are many factors that contribute to spread and intensity of wildfires. They are three main contributing factors that spread and intensify wildfires, namely, Fuel, weather, and topography. Wildfires that are started by fuel are usually results from leaves, needles, branches, logs, and grass while fires started by weather conditions include things like temperature, precipitation, humidity, and wind. Finally, topology or landscape area, this is whereby steep slopes tend to be the greatest cause of fire intensity (Michigan State University, 2012).

Physical nature of wildfires The physical effects of wildfires are equally dangerous, and these effects can be classified as primary and secondary categories or social, economic, and environmental classifications. The social effects are those whereby humanity is affected. Economic effects are those that affect businesses and money while environmental effects are those that affect natural and constructed materials. A closer look into some of the primary effects of wildfires would include lost lives, injured persons and dead animals, all of which were results of raging flames (Parker, 2012).

Another destructive force is loss of property and personal possession, burning of crops and vegetation and massive amounts of smoke released. The secondary effects of wildfires tend to cause health related issues among people, of which is resultant of smoke and ash in the air. Farmers and agricultural workers to get affected, in that their animals and crops are destroyed which in turn creates loss of jobs and incomes. This loss of jobs extends to the tourism sector as well which leads to tourist declinations.

Recreational access area is restricted, as well. The land also gets affected in that soil erosion and landslides start to increase due to loss in vegetation, of which the vegetation is the binding force that keeps soil intact. Another area of loss is habitats of animals, which leads to extinction. The Waldo Canyon (2012) and the Black Forest (2013) fires in Colorado a. Pre-event conditions In comparison to the two fires that broke out in both Waldo Canyon (2012) and Black Forest (2013) counties, the Black Forest wildfire was the most destructive in Colorado’s history.

The Pre-event conditions of the Waldo Canyon fires of 2012 that mourning, were clear blue skies with hot and dry humid temperatures with erratic winds, which kept changing direction and getting stronger as the day progressed. While the Black forest fires of 2013, pre-event weather conditions, were dry weather and warm temperatures and high winds, the kind of weather that is favorable for most wildfires. b. Duration of the fire until it was under control The duration for the fires to be contained in the county of Waldo Canyon took 18 days to have under control.

The reason for this is was the type of properties and neighborhoods that was

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“:Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1494395--manmade-hazards-and-disasters-yt-wildfires
(:Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires Essay)
https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1494395--manmade-hazards-and-disasters-yt-wildfires.
“:Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1494395--manmade-hazards-and-disasters-yt-wildfires.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF :Manmade Hazards and Disasters : Wildfires

Prince George's County Community Hazards

Moreover, it is evident that the public are not informed about certain hazards and how to manage the same in the places in which they live in.... Prince George's County Community hazards Name Institution Prince George's County Community hazards Introduction Prince Georges County has put in place hazard mitigation plans with an aim of creating awareness about the possible causes of hazards within the region.... hellip; Some of the causes of the hazards are pointed out to be man-made or natural....
11 Pages (2750 words) Research Paper

Risk and Vulnerability Investigation for Japan

hellip; The study is being undertaken by a consortium of organisations for the Government of Japan as a way of exposing the types of disasters that affect the country and how the country can best manage these disasters.... The graph below shows the number of natural disasters that have occurred in Japan from 1980 to 2010.... 2: Natural disasters in Japan from 1980 to 2010 It is worth mentioning that Japan's earthquakes are accompanied with tsunamis (Prevention Web, 2011)....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Effects of Climate Change and Global Warming

Summer temperatures in certain regions such as Australia are already high but due to the steady rise in temperature wildfires are more prone to occurring.... The effects of climate change and global warming is not isolated in a particular region or continent, it is a global issue and has caused numerous disasters across the world.... This can cause a number of health hazards for a lot of people and even destroy structures with the passage of time....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Planning for Emergencies

Washington is a mountainous state and has a coastline making it vulnerable to avalanches, drought, earthquakes, floods, landslides, storms and wildfires.... It is twofold because there are basically two causes of disasters.... hellip; The other form happens to be man made even through acts of terror. disasters that happen through acts of God consist of natural mishaps such as storms, floods, famine, earthquakes, tsunami, bird flu, etc.... Man made disasters, other than terrorism, can happen due to hazards from abandoned mines, chemical wastes, and on lesser scale problems associated with dam breaches, nuclear mishaps, etc....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

The Concept of Storm Surge

This system grew out of the challenges of interagency co-ordination experienced when fighting wildfires in western states.... hellip; The author states that the assumption that 'natural' disasters are inherently and predominantly natural phenomena has tended to exclude the social sciences from consideration in much of the spending that is done in disaster preparedness.... This is despite the fact that over the last twenty years a considerable literature on disasters has emerged....
4 Pages (1000 words) Assignment

Industrial Security Plan

In these inspections, a safety officer checks for broken and damaged equipment, slip and fall hazards and other likely hazards (Subramanian, 2006).... Safety officers examine interior and exterior workplaces to establish if there are any possible safety hazards.... Security officers carry out industrial safety plan implementation....
7 Pages (1750 words) Assignment

Case Studies in Environmental Hazards

hellip; They are thus well versed with the subject of wildfires and their effects on the environment.... They are also knowledgeable on the best steps that can be taken to correct the negative effects of these wildfires.... They talk about the dangerous effects of wildfires on a broad range of natural habitats.... They indicate that wildfires are the main cause of flash floods and the flow of debris.... They indicate that one of the main causes of the hydrological driven hazards that occur after the wildfires is the decreased rates of infiltration....
5 Pages (1250 words) Article

Key Features of Emergency Management

Emergencies, catastrophes, and disasters are not ramping since they are distinctively separated by the emergency response applicable to their occurrence.... Emergency management is a wide term or a generic name that refers to an interdisciplinary field that deals with organizations' strategic management processes that are used to protect vital assets of other organizations from hazardous risks that may even lead to disasters or catastrophes (Sugihara, 2006).... disasters are events and are distinguishable from daily emergencies by four factors including disaster make organizations to lose their normal autonomy....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us