The Centralia mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania is a massive underground fire that has been burning for more than 50 years. Beginning in 1962, it has since driven away all but ten (as of 2012) residents.
A massive wildfire, commonly referred to as the Big Blowup, ravished 3 million acres of woods and burned down everything in its path. In response to the devastation the US Forest Service changed their fire management strategies and policies.
The film tells the story of how a small community and its environment can fall victim to the forces of disaster capitalism.
Covering a wide geographical range of European countries, the articles in this edited collection investigate urban disasters such as floods, fires, earthquakes, and epidemic diseases.
Only in recent times have serious historical studies been published about floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storm tides, forest-fires, and other natural disasters and their effects on human life.
Scrubland grazing by the omnivorous goat could reduce the risk of widespread fires. But goat populations have been controlled by bans and restrictions for many centuries. The political, economic and cultural reasons why the animal had such an unsavoury reputation are explored.
The author argues in this paper that the basis of these cattlemen’s use of fire to manage the land was their understanding of the practices during the ‘pioneering’ period of European settlement and of Aboriginal people before that.
Burning cultivation of peatlands has been practised in peat-rich countries at one time or other throughout Western Europe. In these and other peat-rich countries, the inclusion of the emissions from burning cultivation could substantially alter historical carbon dioxide emission estimates.
