Wildfires occur every year, burning many forests down to the ground. In Europe, wildfires burn down an average of 500,000 hectares each year. This total amount of hectares is twice the size of Luxemberg. Most of the wildfires have occurred around the Mediterranean region in Europe. Most people think that only the area affect by the wildfire takes damage. Well they are wrong. Wildfires damage both the economy and the environment surrounding the area. According to the Mediterranean, the wildfire rate has increased, going over the natural rate. The excessive fires can degrade the ecosystem’s quality of resource productivity and maybe even destroy the ecosystem as a whole. This can cause a problem for humans and should be stopped. The Mediterranean area should strive to stop the wildfires as soon as they happen. To do this, they need to strengthen their firefighting methods. The firefighters would need to create a better plan of action to stop the fires from getting out of control. A barrier to this solution is that some species require the wildfires to strive and flourish. This could cause a decrease in the size of the species that require the wildfires but overall it will benefit more to stop the fires.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/forest-fires-in-southern-europe-destroy-much-more-than-trees
I agree that more needs to be done to stop wildfires as soon as they happen. What's helpful to this area is that they ARE near such a big body of water like the Mediterranean sea so it can be easily accessed as a reservoir if water is needed to put out the fires. This accessibility should make it cheaper for these Mediterranean countries to implement a new plan for quicker, more efficient fire-fighting.If we can devise a way to stop these fires before they spread, then we could end up saving a lot of trees and wildlife.
ReplyDelete