california: What are they doing or not doing that causes their fires to last so long? i am guessing most states get lightning every year, but not all the fires created by them burn as long as the ones in california. so what gives? did smokey bear not make it to california and tell them only you can prevent forrest fires?|||ya they are burning down a lot of trees. last time i went to our cabin, our bike trail was ruined with knocked down trees. Its the fire hazard all right. Smokey bear took a 2 long hybernation if u ask me.|||Fire is a natural phenomenon. It's part of a cycle of growth, fire, destruction, and regrowth. In fact, by trying so hard to prevent fires, it just allows the environment to keep on accumulating dry plant detritus, so that when there IS a fire, it burns a lot longer because of all that fuel that has been allowed to accumulate in the absense of fire. So in a way, by preventing all these fires from happening, it's only causing the fires that actually do happen to burn stronger and longer. This is just from an ecological point of view, however.|||Most states don't have as much dry brush as california. Dry brush= fuel. When these fires happen in the desert or in the mountains there is very limited access to water and other materials to contain it. Winds also play a factor as they can be rather high in California and spread the fire faster that it can be contained. But, lighting strikes are nature's way of renewing itself. Nature never anticipated a bunch of people building their homes in fire prone areas.|||THERE ARE NONE. THE REASON THE FIRES ARE BURNING IS A DRY WINTER (DROUGHT CONDITIONS) AND AN INORDINATE AMOUNT OF SLASH IN THE WOODS. ADD THE WINDY CONDITIONS AND YOU'VE BASICALLY GOT A DISASTEROUS SITUATION. FIRES ARE REALLY NOTHING NEW TO THE AREA. I THINK THE NATIVE AMERICANS USED TO SET FIRES TO CLEAR THE LAND AND RID THE AREAS OF DRY BRUSHY PLANTS. HERE'S A SOURCE FOR THAT INFO, SEE WEBSITE BELOW: Fire was an important tool widely used by Native Americans. It was part of their everyday life. Fire had many uses: reducing the undergrowth thereby opening up the area for more food plants such as berries; clearing the land for crops; and hunting-driving game in an open woods was quieter and easier to move through when hunting. For a long time it was believed that the Native Americans had little impact on the land they inhabited, taking only what was needed and moving on. However this version of history is not true. Native Americans and in fact all people have changed the landscape they live on to meet their needs for survival and growth. Fires were purposely set by Native Americans for many reasons all critical for their survival: providing food, places to live, safety, and in warfare.|||First of all, California is a pretty dry state, they get lots of sun. This causes the trees in their forest to be drier and therefore easier to catch fire. Also, their forests are very vast, making it hard to try and cut it off or stop it. From what I've read, most of their fires haven't been started from people.|||They lost a butt load of trees to a beetle infextation last year . So the dead dry wood is a tinderbox. I guess a benifit is the fires are clearing the infested trees out of the way for new growth.Lumberjacks used to do this job but since we have stopped them the fires will do it|||apparently youve never heard of the santa ana winds, extremely fast, dry winds that whip embers adn ash around, so when they try to put out one fire, these winds start 6 others with the embers, and help them burn by feeding oxygen and taking moisture away|||California is a very dry place for the most part. (Especially where the fires take place) Forest Fires are hard to prevent when nature suddenly decides to start an electrical storm in the middle of a dry wooded area. (1400 fires roughly)|||it is dry and lack of firemen to put the fire out you can put many sprinklers around your house to make it wet and the fire wont come through as fast and it might put it out around your house|||1. Expensive toilet paper. 2. No more money spent on putting out fires. 3. And earlier Armageddon. =) 4. More money spent in malls and less money spent on hiking equipment. =P|||Benefits to burning trees... Well, you could roast a fuckload of marshmallows.|||im guessing: californias really hotso everythings dry so it burns more easily|||its because its dry there and suddenly lightning strikes!|||it's very dry and the wind is so fast, so it spreads easily