In Australia, a lot of fires are caused by environmental policies, people are not allowed to clear highly combustible dead scrub form their land or they receive a 30,000 australian dollar fine. Recently 1 man took a stand, cleared his land for safety, was fined and then became the only person in his locality whose home wasn't destroyed by a bush fire. Farmers there are also being ordered to plant a very flammable species known as the kerosene bush.
Anyway that was just to let you know that fire can natural or started by man, but in some circumstance even things like green environmental policies can cause fires
We had a terrible wildfire here in Oklahoma last summer which was caused by someone throwing a cigarette away carelessly. It burned 60,000 acres and destroyed 40 homes. The wildfire occurred at a time of year when grass and trees are usually too green to burn. Our area has been under severe droughts for the last several years and that has very likely been caused by global warming. Although the cigarette caused the wildfire, is quite likely that it would not have happened had we had normal rainfall. The article below tells more of that story.
In my day it was Smokey the Bear who said, "Remember, only you can prevent forest fires."
Now the PR people got a hold of it and it is Smokey Bear, not Smokey THE Bear. It is wild fires, not FORESTFIRES. I wonder how much they got for that bit of brainyism?
Yes, you are right. Man causes a lot of forest fires. Lightning does too. Just go out to California and study the Sequoia tree. It relies on forest fires to reproduce and its sap is water based so fires do not harm them.
One thing often missed is spontaneous combustion. This is caused by not clearing the ground and the ground cover, when struck by the sun, decomposes and when the LEL (lower explosive limit) reaches a certain point ignition is attained. This is caused by well meaning but ill-informed greenie types who think they are 'saving our Earth' but in fact, causing damage.
People throwing lit cigarette butts out of car, campers illegally using fires to cook, lightning strikes, and many other things cause fire. Wild fires are usually caused when small fires are whipped up by strong winds and get into very dry grass and timber areas that have not had rain for a while. When a fire gets to that stage, it can generate its own wind, and get even bigger.
The most common cause for wildfires is lightning.
Of course, they are also caused by human activity... like not putting out a camp fire, intentionally setting one, throwing cigarette out of a car window, etc.
Careless people
it is caused of careless of people and it also happen by flames of lightning.
A careless hiker or flash of lighting could cause the area to quickly go up in flames.
