Fight fire with fire. As a phrase, it’s familiar. As a practice it was, until recently, all but forgotten.
We fight fire with high-pressure hoses, with chemical foam, and when occasion demands, we bomb it with water from firefighting planes. And it works, after a fashion. Sooner or later – often later – the fires subside, and people return to their homes. Or what’s left of them.
But the world turns, the winds blow, and the fires revive. It’s wildfire season in North America, and once again, the news is filled with images of flames racing through forest. As I write this, there are more than 100 fires ablaze in the western US alone, with 4.5m hectares going up in smoke. Up in Canada, more than 200 communities are under fire evacuation orders, rekindling fears of a disaster like that which struck in British Columbia (BC) in 2021, when the town of Lytton was virtually wiped off the map.
