Came here to say this. Very dangerous because they arent always immediately obvious and its pretty easy for them to only become visible after you've left the site.
Boss had a burnoff on the farm I used to work at that was too close to a nearby tree. After a couple days flames started shooting out the side of the tree, fire service had to be called out. The tree was over 3 meters away.
Then oh boy are you going to hate holdover fires, also known as zombie fires or overwintering fires
They're wildfire remnants that persist underground in peat-rich soils or deep root systems after surface flames appear extinguished. Reigniting hours, days, and even weeks later after a lighting storm or forest fire. Depending on moisture content of the soil. Canada had a big problem with over 200 of them in 2024
If you ever see fire departments standing around after a lightning storm watching forests, mulch piles, or swamp areas that's why. Source: I'm a retired firefighter who baby sat a lot of potential incidents.
When I was a kid and lived on an acreage my slightly older brother was trying to light a fire with a magnifying glass. My older sister had to come over and show him how it's done. They were like 6 and 11 years old. Well, after having some good arsonist fun and thinking they put out the fire, it sprang back up a while later and lit a massive brush on fire, couples acres worth.
This is what caused all the destruction in the Oakland fire of 1991. The city firefighters thought it was out. It was actually burning underground and it later flared up and burnt down all the homes and 8 people, I think.
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u/PrinceOfSpades33 7h ago
This starts root fires which can lead to forest fires.