A forest fire can be combated in various ways. Which way is best for a particular fire has to do with different things. Determining the area is very important for this. For example, control in a hilly landscape will often be tackled differently from a flat landscape.
General
Everyone’s fear is a forest fire. The fire spreads very quickly, sparing everything and nothing. It destroys everything in its path, be it animal, tree, greenery or houses and cars, nothing is safe. The loss of many human lives is also attributed to a forest fire. But how are these actually fought to prevent much worse damage?
Back-burning strategy
In this way of fighting fires, the firefighters set fire to part of the forest themselves (sometimes for hours). This is done with burners and incendiary bombs. In this way they burn away part of the forest, so that the fuel is removed from the fire and the fire is stopped. In this way of combating it is very important to look at how the area looks like, hilly, flat, etc. This means that this back-burning must be well planned.
This is a difficult way to combat, because the fire always finds a way along which it can burn further. A major opponent here can be the wind, if it turns or becomes stronger, sparks can be blown over to the forest that could be preserved by consciously burning away a piece of forest and low vegetation. Because of the turning of the wind, for example, a week of hard work could have been in vain.
Supply of water or retarder
Another option for fighting a fire is to supply large quantities of water or fire retardant (about 7500 liters of water at a time). These are transported by helicopters in large water bowls. Of course, this is of little or no help with very large fires, but reasonably small fires can be extinguished as a result.
Let it burn nicely
Sometimes the simplest and least risky way to extinguish a fire is simply to let a fire burn out. But then one must be sure that there will be no casualties. This way of burning creates an ecological balance. The dead wood and low vegetation disappear, creating new nourishment for the earth. Certain trees can finally reproduce after a fire and new vegetation is created.
Fire avenues
A river or a road is an ideal way for firefighting to stop a fire. On the other side of this road or river, a fire avenue is dug around the fire to stop the fire in this way. Among other things, a bulldozer is used to dig these fire avenues. The avenues are reinforced by ramparts to prevent falling debris.
For an optimal result, flammable material is burned away next to the fire lane. The dead trees are also cut down so that they cannot fall over the fire avenue.