Brush Fire?/Grass Fire?/Or WILDFIRE?

[BoB76]

Why has every little fire suddenly become a WILDFIRE? Is it the media? Is it everyone wanting more attention? When I see "breaking news" and it's some .1 hectare WILDFIRE in some grass it annoys me that it even makes the news.

[Bubalouie]

Gee I don't know Bob, maybe people remember the fire some years ago that a lot of property was destroyed and they are more concerned now than they used to be.................

[Frisk]

Basic definition of a wildfire: An uncontrolled fire burning in a natural environment.

Brush, grass, forest, they are all classified as wildfires. Typically when a fire is first discovered it's listed as 'wildfire' by the media because they don't immediately know what fuel type the fire is burning in.

[trapp]

Wildfire: “An unplanned or unwanted natural or human-caused fire, or a prescribed fire that threatens to escape its bounds.”

Initial fire reports refer to them as incidents. This has nothing to do with Media, it is Forestry term as defined above. It has nothing to do with size. The terms brush, grass, forest, sawdust pile, slash, slash pile are all types of wildfires.

[vinnied]

If the media was to use the term "Firestorm" without just cause, then you can be up in arms. Wildfire? meh, no biggy.
I had a pretty wild fire on a marshmallow once

[Symbonite]

Im with Bob on this one...everything is a exageratted WILDFIRE when there is a match lit. Whatever happend to Forest Fires of pre 2003?

[Always Sunny]

It's either a structural fire, or a wildfire. Unfortunately for you, you don't care for the terminology.

Smokey says:

"Wildfire" is the term applied to any unwanted, unplanned, damaging fire burning in forest, shrub or grass and is one of the most powerful natural forces known to people

The "wild" in wildfire doesn't refer to it's size or level of destruction by the way. It's the fact that it originates in nature or "wilderness".

You want a different numbering system for brush, grass, forest, slash pile, etc. fires?? No, they're all going to be classified as a wildfire.

Ever considered the fact that EVERY wildfire starts off as <0.1 hectares? Fact of the matter is, they all start the same, they don't wait to see where they end up before classifying it.