An escape fire is a fire lit to clear an area of vegetation in the face of an approaching wildfire when no escape exists. Unlike backfires, escape fires are not attempts to control – let alone stop – a wildfire. Like a backfire, it works by depriving an approaching primary fire of fuel so that when the primary fire reaches where the escape fire started the primary fire cannot continue; there is nothing there to burn.
The technique had been described in James Fenimore Cooper's 1827 novel The Prairie but became well-known only after the Mann Gulch fire. On this occasion, (Robert) Wagner "Wag" Dodge came up with the same idea independently, and successfully put it into practice. He cleared an area large enough for him to survive unharmed when the main fire was less than one minute away.
Escape fires are an option in grassland but do not work in forest fires because timber burns too slowly to consume the fuel before the main fire arrives.
Approximately 40-percent of all wildfire deaths are caused by fire entrapments, or what are sometimes called burnovers.
Famous quotes containing the words escape and/or fire:
“The glory of my name increases my shame. Less known by mortals, I could better escape their eyes.”
—Jean Racine (1639–1699)
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)