Fire on the side of the Road!

roddiesho

What was burning?  Agricultural fires are very normal. Have you lived there long enough to remember all the sugar cane fields when they would be burned off?  Sometimes, you would not see the sky for weeks. Trash and debris burns are also very common, just as they are everywhere.

Don't expect a civic culture of the volunteer fire department as you would in old  America's , Norman Rockwell esques type of places.

It ain't happening. Criminal Arson, Plantation Fire, all to common around these parts. 

Your neck of woods in Ceara ain't Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 

Heck, they been setting fire on large patches of land in the Amazon and no one  local yokel raises the voice, for heaven's sake. 

In rural areas people burn trash and also burn as a lazy way to clear brush. This seems standard practice on roadsides. This is aside from agricultural fires in slash and burn scenarios. It’s so common damn near everyday you can see fires across the valley from my wife’s place. If you look regularly much of the roadside brush is burnt. It’s insane honestly and destructive.

Don't expect a civic culture of the volunteer fire department as you would in old America's , Norman Rockwell esques type of places.
It ain't happening. Criminal Arson, Plantation Fire, all to common around these parts.

Your neck of woods in Ceara ain't Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Heck, they been setting fire on large patches of land in the Amazon and no one local yokel raises the voice, for heaven's sake.
-@sprealestatebroker

My other home is in Oregon, USA. Most of the farms statewide burn their fields every fall, always have, and I can only guess, they always will. The upper Willamette Valley between Salem and Portland along the Interstate 5 corridor disappears in smoke when they burn the fields of grass.

not claiming I know agricultural land management in any ways but.....

As far as I can remember, Willamette Valley  used to be big on Dairy Farms. 

Now, why can't they just used contract grazing with goats instead ?

Lani Malmberg and a few other do this from Texas through Wyoming up to the Northwest. 

I understand burning recycles carbon, and nutrients, so do goat herding. 

not claiming I know agricultural land management in any ways but.....
As far as I can remember, Willamette Valley used to be big on Dairy Farms.

Now, why can't they just used contract grazing with goats instead ?

Lani Malmberg and a few other do this from Texas through Wyoming up to the Northwest.

I understand burning recycles carbon, and nutrients, so do goat herding.
-@sprealestatebroker

That area grows mostly grass, like high-grade rolled turf grass, although a lot of mint etc. is also grown. Fire is commonly used as a ground pest control. In no way would "goats" be viable for that, or on such a scale, even just for the alfalfa fields where I live, they are all burned in the fall. I used to work at the Salem Hospital located west of I-5. When they burnt the fields on the east side of the freeway, out towards Silverton, sometimes we could not see the cars in our parking lots, several miles away. 

In Bahia, that is called "mowing operations".......

This became an ingrained habit centuries ago .....one of the reasons is for clearing land to prepare it for agriculture or pasture ...its a particularly effective way to clear a sugar cane field after harvesting .... another related reason is that it keeps down harmful insects like scorpions and mosquitoes, and it is particularly effective at reducing the population of deadly vipers, whose venom can kill a man or cow within an hour or two...

Because the practice is so common and frequent, the kinds of massive, devastating, fast-moving and super-destructive forest fires that come down and wipe out human developments as happens so often in California, almost never happens here......

... effective at reducing the population of deadly vipers, whose venom can kill a man or cow within an hour or two...

Because the practice is so common and frequent, the kinds of massive, devastating, fast-moving and super-destructive forest fires that come down and wipe out human developments as happens so often in California, almost never happens here......
-@Inubia

I saw my first coral snake walking a road in a cane field years ago. We both stopped and stared at each other for a few minutes!

In Bahia, that is called "mowing operations".......
This became an ingrained habit centuries ago .....one of the reasons is for clearing land to prepare it for agriculture or pasture ...its a particularly effective way to clear a sugar cane field after harvesting .... another related reason is that it keeps down harmful insects like scorpions and mosquitoes, and it is particularly effective at reducing the population of deadly vipers, whose venom can kill a man or cow within an hour or two...

Because the practice is so common and frequent, the kinds of massive, devastating, fast-moving and super-destructive forest fires that come down and wipe out human developments as happens so often in California, almost never happens here......
-@Inubia

i can’t speak for all biomes in Brazil. I think in the pantanal fires are part of the natural cycle and indigenous land management and could be for the caatinga. There is no corollary to the American west though which is exponentially more dry than even the caatinga. The fires occurring in the Amazon, cerrado, and mata Atlântica are not part of any natural cycle of fire of the land, and do not come from indigenous land management which would cut and burn small plots in 15 year cycles allowing forest to regenerate. It’s more about very destructive forms of feudalism and rural capitalism present that devalue the land honestly. There are studies by various scientific and public agencies about the health and environmental effects of people lighting fires left and right. The fact that people die from out of control fires and there’s no culpability still blows my mind but hey. You can literally torch a neighbors crops and little will happen.

@rnbtg That sounds about what I am experiencing.