Environmentalists responsible for much of Australia’s bushfire problem

And, of course, lightning strikes cause many fires. These strikes occur more frequently in areas where fires occur because of the type of clouds that form, cumulonimbus, and the precipitation they produce. Cumulonimbus are the only clouds that produce lightning.

In recent weeks, Australian bushfires have often been blamed on global warming supposedly caused by rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels. But this is completely backwards.

Rising temperatures and increasing CO₂ both act to increase soil moisture and so reduce the potential of fires. When temperatures rise, evaporation increases, causing more precipitation which increases soil moisture and so lessens fire risk. As CO₂ rises, stomata, the pores in plant leaves, are open for shorter lengths of time. Plants therefore lose less water to the air and so more of it stays in the soil, again reducing fire potential.

A closer look at the issue reveals that fire has benefits as well as risk. Indeed, it is an essential part of the natural cycle. Fire clears off dead debris as plants go through their lifecycle. There is a special area of botany called Fire Ecology that studies the role and importance of fire in ecosystems. In most ecologies, especially forests, many plants require fire to soften or open the seeds to start life, although the seed shell must survive the fire first.

One example of such a seed occurs in the vegetation of what is called a Mediterranean climate. California is an example of this type. It is a unique climate zone because 70% of the precipitation occurs in the winter. All other climate types have either 70% in summer or an even distribution throughout the year.

A Mediterranean climate results in a unique vegetation called Maquis in Europe and Chaparral in California. The annual climate cycle that makes this an area that requires fire to be healthy has a hot, dry, summer that shrivels the plant but the seeds survive. At the end of the summer, lightning occurs as rain clouds begin to form, and that triggers fires that burn off the plants but leave many of the seeds intact. Mudslides follow as the rainy season progresses. Fortunately, the seeds germinate quickly and stabilize the soil.

The natural cycle of forest fires creates what are called crown fires. They move through quickly, burning off dead debris but leaving most of the plants still alive. When governments decided to stop forest fires, they upset the natural dynamics completely. The bureaucracies, now populated by graduates of the biased environmental education system, willingly allowed the environmental extremists' demands to end the former sensible practice of cleaning the undergrowth. Activists complained that such forest tending was not 'natural,' when it was, in fact, a reasonable facsimile of 'nature'. So, the debris built up, leaving the forest a tinder box ready to ignite.

Environmentalists have themselves to thank for much of Australia's bushfire problem.