Fire
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So after a discussion on IRC about forest fires, and something I have seen in every IRE game there is, where people take being a forestal to some absurd level of Greenpeace activist meets Smokey the Bear, I decided to see what other people think.

My opinion
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Any forestal minded person who thinks fire comes in two flavours "good" and "bad" is wrong. Fire is a cleansing/regrowth agent in forests. It is only the economical timber industries and tourism industries that have turned fire into a four letter word.

Without fire, a forest ends up choking itself and dying from disease and stagnation. Now I have heard that controlled fires are good, uncontrolled are bad. Well, what is a controlled fire? It isn't like a couple bears sit down one day and say:
'Hey, George.'
'Yes, John?'
'You think that section of forest over there looks unhealthy?'
'I think it does, John. What should we do about it?'
'Well George I just happen to have this pack of matches from those last campers we ate. How about we run down to the river and fill up on water so we can control the fire if need be and let it burn?'
'Sounds good, John. Hopefully those pesky rangers don't catch us this time.'

Forest Fires are not controlled, they just happen. It doesn't really matter how they start, if left untended they will eventually burn themselves out and new forest will grow. Now of course I am not saying I want to live in a burnt out forest and we should ignore a fire if it starts. However, fire should not become a four letter word that makes everyone scream "oh god no! Not my beautiful forest!" You can RP a fire no matter how it started as a bad horrible thing or you can treat it as what any proper minded forestal would do and say "well that section will be able to grow back stronger and healthier now. Pity the section over there didn't get a little."

Anyways, give your thoughts if you want.

If fires were implemented here it would take a lot of work to make it so people did not demonize them. However, the very nature of an IRE forest fire as I understand it does not help foster a positive image. IRE forest fires don't burn themselves out over time but require being put out by other players. Now, I realise that that may be outright inaccurate and if it is, awesome. If its not inaccurate, then I don't see player attitudes towards fires changing for the better.

I really don't want to spend much time putting out fires all the time anyway.

I tried to explain to someone recently that fires can be beneficial, that some plants can't even reproduce without fire. Just in the same way that floods are useful in revitalizing crop land in certain situations.

But, no one would believe me .

I don't want to put out fires all the time either. I am just trying to show that fires are not a horrible thing that you only mention in whispered tones.

Well, will fires in fact burn out on the their own or do they require being put out by players?

IRE fires need to be put out. There is no game mechanic as yet to let them burn out. The only bad of them from a player perspective is that they are a pain to chase after and put out. The problem is that players turn them into this demonic thing IC that would make Smokey the Bear proud.

Maybe, to make it interesting, fires could affect herb growth. Like after a fire plants would grow faster for a few months. That would make fires much more bearable.

This is actually one of the things I really liked about Auskelis that maybe doesn't get as much press anymore - the idea that nature can take care of itself, and the communes aren't really self-appointed protectors of a helpless ecology. I'm not saying our commune members here are the rabid nature-freaks of Achaea in whole (though they are in part). I think anyone who doesn't realize fire is good OOC in a natural forest situation is...unlearned. I think game mechanics that, for no reason other than making players do stuff, force them to fight fires that would really be considered good and natural, is dumb. I think having fires is interesting and potentially good in terms of interaction.

Actually...Why don't fires in other IRE games ever happen in cities? Why should forestals get all the fun/grief? Plus, raiding and setting fires would be fun! That's when (large) fires are pretty much always bad, inside settled areas.

Its because Auseklis is as dead as Isune.

No no, he is just hiding.

I think there are good fires and bad fires...

Good are the ones that do all the stuff you just mentioned...

bad fires are the ones that do all the stuff you just mentioned, but they do it really close to you, so it gets hot and you want to run away, and threaten burning down the nice view you use to have.

Something that you'd have to be very watchful about is that while fire might be beneficial for the forest as a whole, the commune proper would be oh so flamable, also.

Serens wouldn't like our little village in the trees to go up in smoke now, would we?

I pity Gregori, must be hard getting anything done over there.

I agree, the cleansing nature of fire has been used by the native aboriginals of Australia for thousands of years. Fossils documented from around 2k B.C.E. have been found of native Australians with 'fire sticks', and their oral cultural history still contains records of them carrying around, once again, 'fire sticks', which were used to burn vast tracts of land, to get the bush growing again, and re-fertilize the soil.

Thorgal, Gregori has his ways, no need for pity.

I walk softly and yell loudly. Doesn't always work, but it is soothing.

While it is true that certain plants have evolved such that they only germinate after coming into contact with fire, that is an evolutionary mechanism that ensures the survival of the species. Fire is not 'good' for plants. Plants are simply equipped with a means to handle it.

There are several types of trees (and thus forests where these trees are found) that are less equipped to handle fire. If these forests burn to the ground, it is possible that the forest could recover, however, it is as possible that the forest will not.

Furthermore, when was the last time you saw a swampy/marshy forest catch on fire? It probably isn't going to happen given the vast amount of water. Have these forests died out to stagnation and disease? Nope. They are just a different type of eco system that adds favor (I imagine they do not have seeds that germinate in fire either).

I should have been more specific, but I was speaking from experience and my knowledge of Australian native plants.

Obviously in areas that forest fires are not prominent, which almost any place that has forest has fires, even in tropical forests that see mostly rain, this discussion is not as valid. However, forest fires are not just good for plants, that need heat, to seed. Many things rely on periodic burning of the forest, and forests have caught fire since Prehistoric times. Again, it is only Man that has decided this bad and that is due to economic reasons.

Fire is not good for individual plants, but it is good for a forest ecosystem on the whole, particularly in the long term. This is why forest management in most large parks and forest preserves now practices controlled burns on a regular basis.

I think it'd be an interesting way to improve the simulation of Lusternia to have two levels of fire, controlled burn and runaway wildfire. Imagine if the pyromancers and Serens working together could, every few years, do a controlled burn that would have some risk of turning into a wildfire, but if done properly, would cause improved health and increased plant growth rates for the following few years.

Of course this just pushes us up against another limitation in the simulation: the only plants in the forest we can actually see change are herbs and sacred trees/totems, not all the many other plants that are there only in the description. (Which is also why a forest can't get its hands on wood, and is actually at a disadvantage compared to the cities in doing so.) Unless some kind of wood production was added (which might not be a bad idea -- let the forests gain wood comms from themselves, not just villages, and let the cities gain something of equivalent value more suitable to them), the only way this could be reflected is in changes in the growth rate of herbs.

At some point along this way it becomes clear what while this level of simulation might be interesting, it's really a lot more trouble than it's worth, considering the resources that'd be required to address it, and particularly, to address it in anything other than a half-assed way.

Fire is a destructive force, in truth. Many forests, usualy those most prone, have just found ways to survive in spite of a fire.

The thing is, though, the forest isn't the end-all-be-all of nature. Stopping a fire made from, say, a lightning strike or hot dry weather is like stopping a wolf from killing a deer's cubs; you can feel all moral and good about it but you can't call it 'protecting nature'. Destruction realy is a part of nature, whether the destruction is to improve (like a bird feeding a worm for it's young) or just to destroy (like that volcano).

I believe the main difference between the 'natural' and 'unnatural' lies in the cycle. Essentualy, will death lead to future life and life lead to future death? Fires, earthquakes, volcanos, ext, are considered natural because for all that they destroy SOMETHING will be born. It may not be what used to live there, but it'll be something. Alot of our actions are considered unnatural because of the idea that our actions won't give anything else a chance to grow back: death and no life.

So, in that regard, if a fire was left on it's own in an IRE realm with no player action, can something grow back from it? If not, then IRE fire isn't natural, which isn't nessisarily a bad thing: IRE nature is NOT RL nature afterall.