> Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never burned so badly.
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
Basically they had no way to fight those fires at the time, as the article explains.
Either way, firebreaks and green firebreaks seem like they could be a reasonable mitigation approach, whatever the overall causes.
Does anyone here know whether the Landes forest has good firebreaks? If not, does anyone here know why? I failed to find anything about it online.
The forest is a giant tinderbox.
They do have firebreaks, paths for trucks to go in many places [1]. I've seen many.
But you could argue they're not wide enough to actually break fire. And when I see videos of how tall and wide the flames are, I have no idea how wide they should be... It's a managed forest though, definitely looked after because economics interests (wood, tourism).
[1] https://cnes.fr/geoimage/aquitaine-littoral-landais-massif-f...
Up to 40km, depending on the wind. Embers can travel a long way.