Intermix fires are as universal as the edge cities that scramble the landscape. They drove last summer's Florida fires, a weird, deadly cocktail of American nature and American civilization. The same environmental recipe is served in the South African fynbos, the Sydney bush and across the maquis of the northern Mediterranean. These are landscapes that have become home to exurban sprawl and urban pockets overgrown with woods and brush. But while once rural, they no longer support a rural economy.
Residents cease to plow, prune, plant, graze, gather and, yes, burn.
In the name of naturalness and in the pursuit of privacy, newcomers prefer to let the land plump up with trees, shrubs and biotic litter. Such sites sprout urban expectations along with summer homes and hobby farms. But fire services often fall between urban and wildland cracks. And in fire-prone environments, structures built with forest materials burn like forest fires. Houses with shake-shingle roofs combust like pine stands.