Hacker News: reco98gg

New comment by reco98gg in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

reco98gg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 06:51:28 +0000

[Answering here to @applepearlime bc limits of my green acct]

They do have firebreaks, paths for trucks to go in many places [1]. I've seen many.

But you could argue they're not wide enough to actually break fire. And when I see videos of how tall and wide the flames are, I have no idea how wide they should be... It's a managed forest though, definitely looked after because economics interests (wood, tourism).

[1] https://cnes.fr/geoimage/aquitaine-littoral-landais-massif-f...

New comment by reco98gg in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

reco98gg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 06:01:41 +0000

I responded to this elsewhere on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49065156

Basically they had no way to fight those fires at the time, as the article explains.

New comment by reco98gg in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

reco98gg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 05:41:14 +0000

And the context is that at the time, they had no way to fight those fires. So yes, it burned 50,000 ha. That was the starting point of devising ways to efficiently fight forest fires. Today we have plenty of specialized trucks, trained firemen, planes, helicopters, who have been fighting for 5 days, and already 42,000 ha are gone. 32,000 ha 4 years ago. After a very wet winter.

Climate is changing drastically, exactly as predicted.

New comment by reco98gg in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

reco98gg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 05:29:42 +0000

You may be absolutely right about the OP, I cannot know.

Still, I believe it is important to highlight the elephant in the room first.

For example to your point: "I still found it interesting to kmow why this fire seems so bad compared to [...] before", I think it is important to state: "because global warming is getting worse over time". Not because pine trees, which have been around for a long time, and have never burned so badly.

New comment by reco98gg in "French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time"

reco98gg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:05:49 +0000

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time.

A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid.

It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need to acknowledge it.

Article explaining when pine tree forest resist well or not to fire. https://www.sudouest.fr/faits-divers/incendies/incendies-en-...