I've seen these videos multiple times but some people with knowledge of forest fires have commented that this is a method of actually fighting these out of control fires. Supposedly it's a method of containment in some regard if you strategically set flame to certain areas.
It's a legit method of control; A fire needs three things to burn, those being flammable material, sufficient heat to ignite the material, and oxygen to accelerate the flame (producing more heat, which ignites surrounding material in an exponential growth as the fire's surface area increases).
A carefully controlled burn over an area in the path the fire is spreading in, ahead of that fire, helps prevent further spread by removing flammable material.
I saw pictures on Twitter of helicopters flying low with flamethrowers starting fires.. Of course not sure of the accuracy.
I've seen these videos multiple times but some people with knowledge of forest fires have commented that this is a method of actually fighting these out of control fires. Supposedly it's a method of containment in some regard if you strategically set flame to certain areas.
It's a legit method of control; A fire needs three things to burn, those being flammable material, sufficient heat to ignite the material, and oxygen to accelerate the flame (producing more heat, which ignites surrounding material in an exponential growth as the fire's surface area increases).
A carefully controlled burn over an area in the path the fire is spreading in, ahead of that fire, helps prevent further spread by removing flammable material.
a fire break
Thank you for the technical term, I forgot it.