»fire«

Joachim Budde reports in Deutschlandfunk radio (28.2.2006) how firemen and researchers engage in France to prevent future fires in the woods. Right now in wintertime they burn small forest aisles, thus during the next hot summer the fires might be extinguished more easily. Researcher Christophe Neffe of Karlsruhe university, Germany, says that the danger of heavier fires during hot summers in the Mediterranean countries increases drastically. The reasons are: more people moving from the countryside to the cities and less peasants engage in viticulture and stock farming. Thus, open countryside is lost to bushes and woods.