Fire has been used by Man to burn vegetation since early times. Originally used as a primitive hunting method to flush out wild animals, it has been developed in modern times as a veld management tool to promote vegetation growth trends (e.g. promoting grass veld, removal of alien vegetation), assist with water conservation, and the

Fire has been a feature of Earth for millions of years, and has been influential in both how our planet has formed, and the subsequent life that developed. Through the process of natural selection, plant and animal species have changed their size, shape, and abilities to survive. Some species that encountered minimal changes to their

With the ever growing list of rare and endangered animals and plants, there is ongoing pressure on wildlife organisations to take steps to conserve these threatened species from becoming extinct. It is unfortunate that injury and death to wildlife will occur during runaway wildfires. While some animals have the ability to escape the advancing flames,

Fire intensity is the term used to describe how hot the fire has burned. In fire management circles, we use the terms “hot fires”, and “cold fires”. A hot fire is one that burns at a very high temperature, moves very slowly, and as a result tends to burn all the material present. In contrast,

We discussed how fuel loads can effect the intensity of a wildfire, and the effects of fire intensity on the environment, in the previous section. To prevent damage to the environment due to very hot fires, and reduce the chances of damage to homes, buildings, crops, livestock, orchards, etc. it has become necessary to manage