Australian fire breaks in action. 2018. (u/hypersonicelf).
“For anybody curious, these are controlled burns. The Australian bush is prone to bushfire, and there are a few species that have actually evolved to rely on these fires (Pyrophytic). Eucalypts are a great example of this because they release oils that encourage bushfires (Edit: The fire in this video looks like there may also be something else flammable in addition. Eucalyptus still goes up quickly, but it’s hard to find any good videos that show it).Since Eucalypts are probably the most common tree you will see here in Australia, you might understand why that suddenly becomes a problem when they start dropping branches absolutely everywhere. The solution is to actively encourage this burning in a controlled manner before it gets out of hand and you end up with fires like the Black Saturday Bushfires (compared to the 2017 California Wildfire ).Fire breaks act to create a barrier zone that has already been burned, so that if a huge fire breaks out elsewhere later on then it won’t unexpectedly spread out of control into dangerous areas.” -Fenizrael
