Word: tinder
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...waters that plays havoc with the world's weather. El Nino helped cause the 1998 Amazon dry spell, and ecologist Nepstad has studied the vicious circle of drought and fire. The first year of drying and burning sucks vital moisture from the soil and leaves the forest littered with tinder. Sheltering leaves that ordinarily prevent the forest floor from baking in the sun are thinned out. The rainy season may provide a brief respite, but during the next dry season, the remaining trees quickly exhaust soil moisture and become more susceptible to fire. When the giants burn and fall, even...
...Ni?o provides the tinder, but humans provide the match. Human penetration of the Amazon, rather than lightning or other natural phenomena, sparks most of the huge fires, and that penetration is increasing, along with deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Fire, deforestation and roads are linked in an unholy trinity. In 1998, Brazilian authorities found themselves battling enormous fires in the states of Par? (where 40% of the southeastern forests burned), Roraima and Mato Grosso. Most blazes started near roads as settlers burned accessible forest to clear land for farms. The only reason even bigger stretches of the dense forest...
...Trees respond to this stress by shedding leaves, creating openings in the forest canopy and adding tinder to the forest floor. With sunlight streaming through these openings and into clearings created by earlier fires, the stage is set for the incineration of larger trees that survived fires in the previous cycle. When the giants fall, even more fuel is deposited on the forest floor, and more sunlight bakes the land...
Nature sometimes has suicidal impulses. This year in the American West, it has set itself on fire--fire's version of The Perfect Storm, a convergence of dry summer lightning, blast-furnace air and millions of acres of tinder. The worst is yet to come...
...author Wallace Stegner wrote: "The remaining Western wilderness is the geography of hope." Right now, it is the geography of tinder. What's the best way to save...