Fire and Water

The present book intends to outline different approaches regarding wildland fires, showing different perspectives and challenges present in the beginning of the 21st century and emerging in different case studies that reveal how wildfires are being faced in some countries around the world (Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Algeria, Mozambique, Lithuania and Chile). Therefore, this book includes fifteen valuable contributions that reflect its title: Wildfires: Perspectives, Issues and Challenges of the 21st Century. The first part of this book includes topics that expresses different realities and challenges on wildfire analysis in Europe, South America and Africa, in a total of six chapters. The second part of this book, entitled “New Perspectives and Methodologies on Wildfire Research”, which is composed of five chapters, is focused on the implementation of recent techniques and methodologies to promote wildfire knowledge and forest management. The last part is related to recent developments on soils and ashes analysis, and their off-site effects on water quality. It is composed of four chapters where these topics are discussed.

Bears and bureaucrats, timber and telephone lines, poaching and predators, fires and families -- all these play a part in this fascinating and long-overdue study of Canadas National Park wardens. The Warden Service has been integral to Canadas National Parks from their earliest days. First established in Rocky Mountains Park (now Banff National Park) in 1909, the position of Fire and Game Guardian was the precursor of todays National Park Warden, whose duties now include resource management, law enforcement and public safety. Robert Burns traces the growth of the warden service from here, its formative years, and goes on to show how the role changed and developed according to the expanding park system, altered societal expectations, and technological change. Guardians of the Wild is a study of real people and their trials, triumphs and tragedies. This book creates a complete history where before there existed only sketchy accounts of single individuals and incidents. The need for such an account is undeniable; well-known historian Simon Evans describes this story as "one which deserves to be heard." Both a tribute to the enormous devotion to duty and dedicated labours of the park wardens, and a well-researched factual account of how our National Parks evolved, Guardians of the Wild is a singular study of the historical evolution of protection and management inside Canadas National Parks.