ANIMAL FIREFIGHTER TO THE RESCUE

Can animals help manage the risks of deadly wildfires?

- by Sonja Cole

Goats don’t wear helmets. Beavers can’t carry fire hoses. But in some places, people are turning to animals for help. These animals may play a role in stopping the spread of wildfires.

FIRED UP

A fire needs three things to burn: fuel, heat, and oxygen from the air. Forest floors are covered in fire fuel. That includes dry grass, dead wood, leaves, and bark called duff. Duff is extremely flammable—it catches fire easily. Heat can come from a burning match. Or from a flash of lightning. Or a hot ember from a campfire.

In the right conditions, the heat from one flaming leaf can set fire to its neighbors without even touching them. The burning leaves set fire to the whole tree. Then the fire jumps to nearby shrubs and trees. An entire forest can catch fire from one match's tiny flame. And this happens quickly. A wildfire races through a forest at up to 14 miles (23 kilometers) per hour. It burns everything in its path. Today, on average, wildfires clear more than seven million acres of land in the United States every year. That's almost as much land as in the state of Maryland.