The biggest cause of death with any kind of fire is smoke inhalation, not the fire itself. Comparatively, it's uncommon for people to be still long enough to burn to death.
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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A lot of people underestimate the dangers of smoke to a deadly degree
I don't know about the Spanish wildfires, but I know in America there's a whole slew of challenges associated.
The first is the unpredictability of wildfires. You don't want to over-evacuate, that causes unnecessary disruption. But conditions can change rapidly, and a plan that looked good 6 hours ago can quickly become bunk.
Another is speed. Wildfires can travel much, much faster than people's intuition leads them to think. So, it can go from "over there" to "oh shit" quick enough to be life threatening. Wildfires counter-intuitively go uphill faster than downhill, winds can pick up, blowing embers can cause it to jump, etc.
A third is that some people try to protect their property. This is actually possible if you've taken proper precautions of removing burnables from your property and have a garden hose that you are 100% certain will keep running. This is not recommended, but some people will try and that is their right. It's a calculated risk they have to decide for themselves to take or not.
Fourth might be various other failures to evacuate. Evacuation order didn't arrive in time, elderly resident didn't hear in time/can't move fast enough, someone got stuck in evacuation traffic, mental illness, stubborn conspiracy nut thinks tin foil hats protect against wildfire, who knows, it'll vary case-to-case.
Fifth could be firefighter deaths. It's a highly dangerous job with a significant fatality rate, and our wildlands firefighters (colloquially called "hotshots") are basically like the special forces of firefighting. They airdrop into wilderness areas with whatever gear they can carry, with instructions to change the course of an oncoming force of nature. They have the tools (chainsaws and shovels mostly) and training to do this, but it's still exactly as dangerous as it sounds.
Wildlands firefighting is really fascinating stuff. I got an audiobook ages ago written by a retired one that talked a lot about the process. Was like 100 pages or something and super interesting, highly recommend.
That's really informative thanks. Firefighters really are heroes
I used to live in a very fire prone party of the Rockies, got any info on that book? It sounds fascinating.
Smokejumper by Jason A. Ramos and Julian Smith
I know the recent-ish Palisades fire near me was an issue of both fast fires and limited exits, but even then most of it was property damage. What worked was early warnings of evacuation that people took seriously.
The part that struck me was they started calling it a conflagration because the structure fires were so much hotter than the bush fires that things were straight up melting, causing cars to stop working and so on. If you were still there when the houses were full burning, you were likely toast.
The best way to avoid deaths, therefore, is early evacuation and careful neighborhood design. There were some houses that survived the blaze because of factors like walls and gaps that helped reduce the spread, although I'm not sure if they cracked the code on that yet.
The code is concrete.
My building has a plan-b for fire that is "shelter in-place in the main bathroom and block the door sweep."
Yeah, I think that's well established but what was interesting was the way concrete walls funneled hot air certain ways but not others. But it's been a while since I heard the interview, the main discussion was on the heat of a conflagration vs a normal fire.
Ahhhhh of course. Layout can save you or fuck you up
You can build essentially fireproof houses using non-combustible materials. (Concrete, rockwool, steel framing, aluminum window frames, metal roofing etc...) and you can further protect by keeping the area around the home free of fuel.
If the fire gets close enough, the windows may break from heat, you still have smoke to deal with, and even a fireproof home can still slowly become an oven. Indoor temperatures can easily become unsurvivable.
Evacuation is always prescribed, followed by non-combustible construction coupled with strict control of fuel.
https://firesmartcanada.ca/about-firesmart-2/the-home-ignition-zone/
Evacuation is always proscribed
Proscribed means it's banned
I am a dumbass.
From Australia.
So there are many reasons people die in fire. It can happen if they've chosen to protect their home, and so stay, and unfortuntely just arent't prepared for it.
Another common way, is leaving far too late, and getting cornered off, being unable to leave.
Sometimes the window for leaving can be very small, I recall last fire season that some people got a warning of the fire and it was already basically ontop of them, as the fire traveled very very fast.
My methods for dealing with fire season are:
Pack important things in a box. I.e ID. Idea is, if i read "leave now" i simply grab the box, and flee. Dont want to be fucking about finding shit as the sky turns red. Also, pet carriers. Dont forget your furry friends.
Know my exits. If the fire is coming from the west, what is the eastern exit?
In australia, theres a rating "catastrophic". In that event, I just leave.
Also check any emergency service information constantly, maybe chuck on the radio (in australia the abc reports fire developments)
As you eluded to, check up on your neighbours. Disaster response is a community effort.
Fortuntely been lucky enough to only deal with the one proper fire scare, where we had to leave. We were very unprepared for it, coming from the city.
EDIT: final one I swear: in australia, there are shelters of last resort. Not sure if other countries like spain or italy have that, but figuring out at least an equivalent and knowing where they are is important aswell.
Ahhh of course routes get blocked off. That hadn't occurred to me. And it changes constantly. This is really interesting thanks
What do you have in your box? Do you take food and supplies? Where do people try to flee to?
Routes getting blocked off was a big deal in the Lahnia (Hawaii) fires a few years ago. There was essentially one route out of the area and everyone trying to get out put it basically a a super dangerous stand still when the fire intersect the exit route.
For the box:
Birth certificate, passport, emotionally important and irreplacable things. Bringing some food / water ofc is important, given the risk of heat strokes on hot days.
In terms of where I flee, I pick some nearby towns that are basically kilometers of concrete and ashphalt, and not right next to a forest. Talk to some friends that are in safer areas before hand about potentially staying over.
Another option for me is to go the city, and just book a hotel.
More pet stuff: if your in the common habit of having your pets run outside, keep them in during bad fire conditions ofc.
In places like Oregon and Washington it's more that there's only a few roads or off road trails to get out.
Unlike places like Kansas or Nebraska where there's a flat county road every mile that can take you any direction.
Traffic gets backed up near larger towns. Also you can't really get a grasp of how close it is when you can't see over the hills or trees
Apple TV did a movie called the lost bus. Based on the 2018 camp fire in California. Sort of gives you an idea of how it could happen. Good movie
Also the dollop podcast episode 572 and 573 did a history of pacific gas and electric company. If you want to hate a company more than anything and just rage the rest of the day. Listen to those two episodes
They are responsible for a lot of fires in the Pacific Northwest. And have faced minimum fines for casualties
Fucking PG&E. After they started 17 fires in Northern California in 2017 and had to pay few bucks and fix a few things, they got super salty and started shutting off all power during red flag days. The longest one was 15 days.
They had so many infrastructure problems that they knew needed fixed but they refused to spend the money to fix them all for more profit. The fines were a joke
Fires spread more quickly than you might think. This says 14mph
I've heard of Australian bushfires traveling close to 100km/h (60mph) with a strong wind.
What's even worse is if the flame front is diagonal to your path of travel. The flames might be going 50km/h, but if they're coming at you at 60%, then you have to be going at least 100km/h to outrun them.
Fires don't need to follow roads. If a fire is traveling perpendicular to the only road you have, you can't drive away from it.
People often will refuse to acknowledge actual danger until it is too late. Possibly being unfortunate or contrary in exit route selection or having particular requirements like elderly relatives. The route you selected is blocked and alternate exits become closed off in an order that is against you and you are left with having to wait for it to engulf you. Horrifying, if you are with your family it is impossible to imagine how horrifying.
Yep there's always going to be some people that refuse to leave or accept the danger. And firefighters etc have to risk their lives saving them
Usually it's the smoke that gets them...
Depends on the situation. Wildfires can sweep through a place so fast, and that combined with smoke, heat, disorientation etc, makes for a deadly combo already. Firefighters must be some of the bravest people willingly wanting to fight that
It can be both. Usually authorities try to evacuate people before the fire approaches too much, but sometimes wind comes up and spreads the fire faster. Some places are very difficult to access, with narrow curvy roads through flammable forest. Sometimes these roads don't get closed down quickly enough and people get trapped. Mountainous terrain on fire gets chaotic easily.
May this be a fresh and moist summer, may the water stay around and keep us safe!
Edit: What can be done? What has been done here so far is the introduction of stricter rules about cleaning land (lots of brushcutting and mowing, great profits for the fossil fuel industry), and giving more money to fire fighting mechanisms (which introduces a certain tendency to commit arson to get more funds).
I believe we need to repair and shape water retention landscapes in the long term and respect water, soil, and non-human beings as conscious creatures to negotiate the building of these landscapes with. It would be a work of generations and few people are at the moment willing to think that far ahead, it's always just reacting to the many manifestations of the polycrisis and desperately slapping more technology on top of everything.
Yep the fire service in the UK do a lot to prevent fires eg reducing litter in alleyways. Preventing is always better
One bit of difference between forests in the UK and those in the western US and parts of Australia is that the forests in the second group included fires as part of the lifecycle of the forest. The release of seeds occurs after a fire and some trees are able to resist fires of a certain temperature.
The problem is that white settlers saw the fires as bad, doing a really good job at preventing forest fires. The problem with doing that is that the forests now have a far higher energy density than they were evolved for, so modern fires are a lot worse.
Disorientation, panic and difficult terrain can all be factors. Getting injured in the process of trying to escape too.
Picture a dense forest. You know there is a fire, you vaguely know what direction it is probably in but that is where the path goes. So you go off the path away from it. Probably. Now you hit a river and try to follow the river away from the fire instead. Now hit some impassable terrain and the only option is to go back, but now that route is on fire.
Laypeople are very bad at predicting fire speed and direction.
If you're told to evacuate, do it immediately, don't "do your own research" (you fucking idiot).
My stupid brother almost died in a forest fire. He went down a closed highway because he didn't see any fire or smoke, and it was the shorter way home. The fire burst onto the road behind him, and then he was suddenly driving next to it. A tree fell across the road behind him a few seconds after he passed it.
Jesus Christ that's scary. Glad he was ok
I don't think that's either/or. You'll inevitably get the folks determined to defend their houses, those who underestimate the danger, those who were surprised by fires, those who were incapable of moving to safety faster. All of the above. Once a fire started, they can kind of forecast where it will be going. But you don't know where it will start exactly.
I think the only sensible thing is to encourage the elderly and those who might need help evacuating to do this up front. That is before the season starts or better still permanently. Move care facilities out of forested areas. Inform the public about the dangers. And hope for the best.
Edit: I just read that the victims are probably mostly foreign tourists. So I add as a recommendation: make information available in other languages.
Yep and tourists don't know the area, don't know what info to monitor, and don't understand the dangers properly.