An escape fire is a

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

lit to clear an area of vegetation in the face of an approaching

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

when no escape exists. Approximately 40-percent of all wildfire deaths are caused by such

fire entrapment Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are pr ...

s, or what are sometimes called " burnovers".

Description

Like a backfire, an escape fire works by depriving an approaching primary fire of fuel, so that when the primary fire reaches the point where the escape fire started the primary fire cannot continue, as there is nothing there to burn. Description of the use of an escape fire, in the context of the

Yarnell Hill Fire The Yarnell Hill Fire was a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona, ignited by dry lightning on June 28, 2013. On June 30, it overran and killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Just one of the hotshots on the crew survived—he was pos ...

: "They’d use flares to set the brush around them on fire, a technique Wag Dodge, a Montana firefighter, famously used to save his own life on a fire that killed 13 smoke jumpers more than 60 years earlier. It would burn the fuel out around the safety zone and keep the flames farther away from the shelters." In contrast, unlike a backfire, an escape fire does not attempt to control – let alone stop – a

. Escape fires are an option in

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

but do not work in

forest fire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

s, because timber burns too slowly to consume the fuel before the main fire arrives.

Notable examples

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

described the technique in his novel ''

The Prairie ''The Prairie: A Tale'' (1827) is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, the third novel written by him featuring Natty Bumppo. His fictitious frontier hero Bumppo is never called by his name, but is instead referred to as "the trapper" or "the old m ...

'' (1827), but it became well-known only after the

Mann Gulch fire The Mann Gulch fire was a wildfire reported on August 5, 1949, in a gulch located along the upper Missouri River in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness (then known as the Gates of the Mountains Wild Area), Helena National Forest, in the U.S. st ...

of August 5, 1949, when (Robert Wagner) "Wag" Dodge came up with the same idea independently and successfully put it into practice. He used it to clear an area large enough for him to survive unharmed when the main fire was less than one minute away.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Escape Fire Wildfire suppression

Description

Notable examples

See also

References