New Analysis of Evidance for Fire-use at the Peking Man Site

Author(s):  
Xing Gao
Keyword(s):  
Fire Use ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-472
Author(s):  
M. Martin Dupuis

For millenia, fire and insects have played an important role in forested land evolution. Understanding the roles they play can be important in helping us not only to control them, but to use them as an ecological tool. Also, we notice some important interactions between these two agents. As insects affect fire, fire may control insect pests. Controlled burning may provide excellent results, but allows a very slight margin for possible errors. Fire use as an insect mangement tool, requires a very precise and wide knowledge of weather conditions, fire intensity, insect's life cycle, available fuels, and type of ecosystem involved.After a long run of experiences and research, we notice that fire has been and will always be an important factor in equilibrium of some ecosystems. Since wild fire prevention campaigns and the emergence of insecticides, some forests have become excessively vulnerable to insect pests. Proper knowledge, and use of fire control, rather than immediate suppression of forest fires, would allow us to conserve various ecosystems in a healthy balance.


Science ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 131 (3412) ◽  
pp. 1511-1511
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Christopher I. Roos

It has been suggested that anthropogenic burning may have altered Southwest landscapes at a large scale. Southwestern biomes vary in their propensity for and their susceptibility to anthropogenic burning practices. Anthropogenic burning to enhance the productivity of wild plant foraging or agriculture was probably limited in scale; on the other hand, fire use in hunting, religious practice, and warfare may have impacted larger scales, though at lower intensity. Middle-elevation forests, woodlands, and grasslands were the biotic zones most likely to be impacted by anthropogenic burning, but sophisticated mimicry of natural fire regimes means that the evidence of such impact is ambiguous.


2019 ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Catarina Romão Sequeira ◽  
Cristina Montiel-Molina ◽  
Francisco Castro Rego

The Iberian Peninsula has a long history of fire, as the Central Mountain System, from the Estrela massif in Portugal to the Ayllón massif in Spain, is a major fire-prone area. Despite being part of the same natural region, there are different environmental, political and socio-economic contexts at either end, which might have led to distinct human causes of wildfires and associated fire regimes. The hypothesis for this research lies in the historical long-term relationship between wildfire risks and fire use practices within a context of landscape dynamics. In addition to conducting an analysis of the statistical period, a spatial and temporal multiscale approach was taken by reconstructing the historical record of prestatistical fires and land management history at both ends of the Central Mountain System. The main result is the different structural causes of wildland fires at either end of the Central Mountain System, with human factors being more important than environmental factors in determining the fire regimes in both contexts. The study shows that the development of the fire regime was non-linear in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, due to broader local human context factors which led to a shift in fire-use practices.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document