news at d.w. dot com slash culture thanks for watching cynics out. there from the book you are no one on t.v. for. the length of nokomis. exposing and justice global news that matters w. may for minds they've been robbed of their soul that's what a people experiences when their heritage is taken from them and the countless cultural artifacts were brutally stolen from africa by colonialists and carted off to europe. these thefts left wounds that have yet to feel what should be done with the stone or from africa the stolen soul starts september 7th on g.w. .

all over the world make of fires are destroying entire towns and regions. or encircle or fire like a freight train coming torture. me. case how much to. make a farmers are different they are beyond our control they are insatiable. did they get what the piece else since some 200 clear to us concerned. scientists and firefighters are taking up the challenge with new methods. it's really up to humans to figure out how to rebalance everything and we can do that it's a race against time to save our habitats and our lives. in

the tropical forest scientists have discovered yet another major impact caused by extreme wildfires. in southeast asia africa and the amazon rampant deforestation for the purpose of agriculture is responsible for an especially risky type of place fires on peat soil. in indonesia this is had terrible consequences bungling here also honcho works

for the government he is investigating the site of an illegal deforestation. i'm betting that since 2000. 500 cases. of. their. own left over from the fire and that so burnt by connecting them to prove there was indeed a fire and will analyze them to determine the impact of the fire. indonesia produces 30 percent of the world's palm oil as demand soars so do the fires. here a palm oil company may have used slash and burn to extend their plantation. before planting the oil palms canals are dug to drain the moist soil.

this lowers the water table by up to 30 centimeters leaving the peat dry and flammable. this burn patch is not yet another illegal far. here and international team of scientists is recreating the legal burns to study their consequences. we are in good one where we are going to stimulate it's less from bone. peat burns differently than trees for a reason. beat. it doesn't burn with a flame. it goes on the ground the saw itself is burning it's not debilitation it's actually this. invisibly

the fires burrow deep into the ground. fires are the largest fires on earth that actually can burn away from view for very long time for weeks and months we have seen fires. in specific locations it creates holes which are a deep person goes into the whole of these appeals from you. is the most persistent type of fire on earth because he's basis to be initiated and the most difficult to suppress. 3 times actually. the fires were not surprised by these rain. back in his lab in london. even more treacherous aspect of the peat fires.

beat that comes from. students from. smells like home because they. are places. to students think that. your team is the only research facility on the globe dedicated wholly to the study of peace fires. how nature restores carbon. stored in the carbon for a long time. but it doesn't a great it actually stays in the water. the deeper you go in that being the older the. it could be from a 100 years to a 1000 years that's a very n.c. and soil that was captured a long time ago. when pete smolders generations of captured carbon are released into our atmosphere all at once. as trees on

biomass grow they take carbon from the atmosphere and they release oxygen and then the fire is the opposite italie fire is the opposite of photosynthesis it actually releases the carbon into the atmosphere and it consumes the oxygen so the growing of a forest is the burning of a forest. and all the while the peat hardly looks like it's burning at all. only the high speed infrared camera captures the fire spreading outwards until all the bio mass has been consumed and the carbon released. big emissions from up big fire are massive. $10.00 to $100.00 times larger than flaming fires. so the footprint is very very large is the elephant in the room off of carbon emissions.

and this footprint is about to become even larger as the fires expand to new peak rich areas of the tropical forest in brazil and peru. and there is another carbon bomb ready to go off. mega fires are also attacking the boreal forest rich in peat in canada alaska scandinavia the u.k. and even siberia. in the border region was fastened under. regence. the scary thing is people and stuff only 3 percent of the land surface but they store a lot of carbon maybe 25 percent of all global carbon stocks so if the fires move into them you get fairly high you mentions area.

that is leaving to climate change is leaving is leading to places where the soil will be warmer and drier which then would lead to more fires which will lead to more emissions so others electorate's a positive feedback mechanism between more peak fires means more fires in the future. and if this increases global warming in general the number of wildfires will soar. where will you go when your forests are no longer green they're black and gone where will you go to breathe deep and slow. every time there is a mega fire a community faces the challenge of recovering from an encounter with the beast.

and several years after the fire fort mcmurray is physically being rebuilt but homes recover faster than people. said let's take a moment to pray for each other let's take a moment to pray for everybody who is coming to our service. this morning we just take a moment of lucas has left his job as a firefighter and become a pastor today that we would do it for the sake of your kingdom and for your glory i think the rate of alcohol consumption and the people i work with just skyrocketed myself personally to you guys excited. as you know every day on the timeline after major disasters like this you see domestic violence increase you see suicides increase you see substance abuse increase all of those things we have seen in our city all of those things are on the rise

2. you know. lucas and fellow church members raised funds for psychological counseling for local people and firefighters. that was. the scientists tell us that for our force to recover and to look like it did before the fire is over 200 years for us as a people who experienced it i don't think it will ever leave us. i emotionally and psychologically would be something that's part of us now as part of our story. all over the world unless we find new solutions more magnifiers like the beast will

take their tribute from our communities. we have tampered with nature and created this crisis now it's up to us to find out how we can save our habitat and our lives before it is too late. frank crumb is a great expert on force dynamics working in switzerland. he is determined to find out which rule fire played in our forests before the age of mega fires after all fire has always been part of nature. to get started frank is headed to a former military bunker from world war 2.

these hidden tunnels lead to the biggest collection of tree samples in europe. some of the samples are 14000 years old. trees have the nice ability to preserve different information in their rings they work as an autobiography for a tree and we can see different kind of signals we can see climatic signals we can see physical influences like damages and so on and we can also see environmental conditions. these are 2 samples from 2 different regions so this one here is from a very cold region and you can see very tiny rings the vegetation period is really

short and the trees are growing very very slowly and here the tree rings much bigger because the conditions are better for the tree so they have the same diameter but this tree is about 25 years old and these trees about 300 years old. here we can see a very narrow rain in 2003 as a consequence of a very dry year. another tree ring bears witness to a rock fall. this tree from southern switzerland shows several scars fire scars appear a fire scar here fires a car and here a fire scar that means the tree has survived several fire events one can really nicely see how the tree can over grow these kind of wounds that are produced by the

fires. the scientists cross reference weather and climate data for an even more precise truly otto biography. here we have an example of a ponderosa pine from arizona with these fires scarse across the whole tree sample the last one is an 1874 than there was 150 years before so this tree has survived several fires that are recorded here this is conclusive evidence during the revolution trees learn to live with moderate fires. fire and the trays are adept at to each other and fires are part of the forest ecosystem. but now humans have brought destructive mega fires upon the forest and upset

a delicate balance. let's find out more about how the forest copes with a moderate fire and even benefits from it. 7 years ago this landscape burned about 55000 acres in it burned in a moderate severe already in this forest is bouncing back already you've got this mountain loop and here this is the nitrogen fixer and it helps this forest to rebound it fixes atmospheric night or nitrogen and then it leaks it to the neighborhood after a moderate fire colorful little helpers fill up the forest and stimulate growth and trees like the launch pull pine just love a good fire many species are adapted to fire but this one here is dependent upon fire to complete its life cycle it's got these

really cool cones every one of these cones scales is held close by a drop of resin the heat of the fire melts that resin the cones open and then the seeds can fall to the ground. a few years later you can come back and see baby seedlings the lodgepole pine failing in under the blackened trees a new forest. here wildfire is part of a cycle of renewal. and it wouldn't have been this way if it had been a big hot mega fire you would have had the seedlings you wouldn't have had the source of plant life that developed here after the fire. fires can help our forests bounce back with new vigor.

we've been thinking about wild fire for a long time in the wrong way there's no way to keep it out of the ecosystem we have to invite it back in and dance with the bass. and. dancing with the unit me might save our lives. but for that we need to overcome our fear of fire. so new lever close a canadian fire ecologist and firefighter has come to me to people who have a completely different relationship with far. and.

i'm chief marvin era here which it was very 1st nations and this is the territory of blueberry press nations we have bought 3000 square kilometers of law on to territory here. fire is important it plays a large role and always has been 1st nations people my dad was my. my teacher. he lived off the land he was a trapper and a hunter he taught always boys are always late it. explained the dangers of it as not to be played with it's important. that also far can be your your friend he says and your enemy at the same time now sonia teaches young firefighters how many indigenous tribes in both canada and

the us knew all along how to use fire as a tool paradoxically it was the indian custom of frequent light burning that it produced and maintain much of the land of white settlers were then able to find. these open grasslands grew very attractive to the white settler. people thought this was a natural thing that happened and they were really really excited but little did they know they needed to continue applying fire to the land in order to maintain and to keep a patchwork mosaic on the land. fire as a tool was outlawed and the tradition largely forgotten only a few tribes like chief marvins have preserved and. we have a bird's eye view living in that area are just 200 stand in a work of fire and you know. we're willing to share. our knowledge and

work with people. sonja is updating the ancient tradition with modern science. first step preparation. in today's dense and overgrown forests a clear boundary needs to be set around the entire plot for the planned fire. where we blackline we actually remove the fuel component of the fire triangle so when a fire approaches a black line then the fire no mo longer can spread because the fuel has been removed from that area. so his team also and a with line to strengthen the boundary. the

great moment has come when we've completed our wet line around the outside edge we've also done black lining against the wet line and if the wind condition is right and we get wind from the west the fire will roll across here it will stop against our black line. this might look like a ping pong ball but actually it's filled with potassium permanganate which gets injected with glycol and make them highly flammable that happens through this machine that i had in the helicopter with the. police in the. so-called prescribed fires or controlled burns are the modern version of a traditional burn to maintain the patchwork in the forest. and they are now making a comeback as an efficient fire prevention tool in canada and the us. and are even

being introduced in europe. playing. helicopters make the process faster. and less risky for the firefighters and allow them to reach difficult terrain. and the fire just scratches the surface and is done in an hour. we light fires because that is also part of firefighting prescribed fire and keeps the land healthy. but there are areas where prescribed fires are a huge risk for instance right next to a community. john

will brant is one of hundreds of millions of people all over the world who live in the so-called wild land urban interface. these dream homes after become deadly fire traps because humans and the forest share the same space. we were well aware that one day we might be fighting a fire to try and save our home. the race is on to find viable solutions to survive extreme wildfire in these areas example california . in december 2017 a spark from a faulty powerline ignited the parched and overgrown landscape a frequent cause of fire where humans want to live in nature with all the amenities . spurred on by ferocious winds the fire soon grew into

a mega fire. and i could look out the window at night as i went to bed and i could see the fire for a couple of nights in a row as it burned closer and closer. john and his partners own cloyd decided to stay and defend their home. what i remember the most of the fire was the sound. the roar the intense it was like a freight train coming towards your place here. on the front of your encircled by fire on at least 3 sides i took one side of the house he took the other and during the entire fire we didn't know whether the other one had survived the fire.

for we made it both wrong claud in our we made it ok or says made it the donkey's made it the cows made it. by studio did not make it. the fire found its way underneath the shipping containers and all of my archives all record of my life as an artist from when i was a teenager up until 2005 i have lost. and as the blaze continued many more homes were lost to the flames. and the firefighters were karla's until the fire raced in london towards 2 far breaks. one was a scar created by a big fire in 2010 which stumps the flames. another was a fire break from the 1960 s. and. on

this ridge what we can see is the vast back country behind santa barbara. and as we look to the south side of this ridge we can see the dense communities of the south coast and you get the visual here of how much area there is to burn that can impact the communities of fort hood often. rob and his colleagues knew that this was their only chance. the little back fire across this ridge line the grass was cleared off with mechanical equipment and we were able to burn along this ridge using our fire to take out the feel bad in between the main fire and this ridge line when the fire arrived at the fire break the fire crews were ready and waiting the fire reduces its intensity when it burns into the field break the flame links are smaller it's more controllable and the firefighters have

places to go if things get out of control. and are burning operation was successful we stopped the fire on this ridge line. but many interface areas do not have fire breaks to protect them from mega fires. we want our cake and want to be able to eat it too it's nice to get away from busy urban centers but it's unrealistic to expect that those places are going to be safe from natural process sees. probably 2 thirds to 3 quarters of all new housing starts in the western u.s. are being developed in very flammable and dangerous circumstances. we have to come up with a more clever for polls all for how we live in these areas we cannot just keep sprawling outward because we can't keep you safe. millions of

people are at risk in zones that are becoming increasingly prone to far. scientist at the misool of firesign says lab has dedicated his career to finding out would really happens when a fire invades a community. jack cohen said a whole experimental forest on far to prove that the heat of the flames is not sufficient to ignite a home. of the view clear you see of course but not ignited while factions likely framed by the cracked wound. now jack's research is the basis of an experiment which revealed what really causes the ignition of a home this. very intense wildfire is producing lots of

firebrands that then can cast down can shower down way ahead. kilometers miles ahead of this intense flame for a. point needles that have accumulated in the rain gutters or cotton fabric so how do you know furniture the wood in the debris that we might have on it there. those are the things that make the house vulnerable to recommission. and once a house is on fire it produces its own members sitting off a chain reaction. to the wildfire actually doesn't spread through the community the burning things in the community end up igniting the rest of the community. but does that mean that communities burning up during wildfires is

inevitable. no. it's a home. new problem rather than a while for control problem. in southern california communities are in a race against time to apply this discovery to millions of homes. in more recent years it seems like there's fires almost we recover from one and there's another one and if it's not here it's close enough that we worry for friends or you know the cities nearby and the only part that hasn't burned is the part directly above me. my mom is terrified that i live here she thinks i should leave because fires are so dangerous. i live in a condo it's wood i know that it's not landscape the way that it should be 2

2. are you. ready and i remember. you so much for coming down for me. while far specialists like amber are inspecting homes one by one to try and make them less flammable. one thing that does concern me would be the mulch that you have around the side of your structure what moats does is it provides a receptive better a place where the ember can land and that night so many of the things that you can do is create a buffer such as rocks or sand dirt would be fine that's cheap anything that just won't carry fire up against the side of your home. look at all this peeling bark the finale of spot the embers like traveling under. the sea that's

how there's an opening in this doorway that allows embers to get right inside your shark sure this would be a weakness actually our neighbors over there have a great example by installing some metal mesh screening right behind those vents so i could just put something right behind it absolutely that's easy. in europe as well many of us enjoy living or spending our holidays near nature in the interface. is specially in the mediterranean. but the closer we build to the forest the better the reach of the flames. combine this with the unique recent drought and you have millions of people at risk .

in portugal in 20174 large wildfires killed 66 people. fires have also been wreaking havoc in spain cyprus and the south of france. in 201-8100 p. . lost their lives in greece. example pullos co-author of a government report about the growing fire risk in greece is investigating what turned a peaceful holiday destination into a fire trap. it's difficult for unprepared untrained people to make decisions many people think with it's just. drive to

get to the main street but drive on the issues not the wind that hundreds of people in that same 3 when it is. the 1st. left is caught in the middle of the street from the ground with a sea. of the people we're stuck and this is exactly what kept them. stuck in the boy and most of them. and the people who tried to leave on foot it's been met with this type of wall that would not allow them to pass through. 26 people perished here just a few meters from the scene. here we have one of the exits one of the buses is full of the scene and you can see how

metal these. people in trying to fight. and there is no sighing even now is a very easy to me see. there was no official strategy in place even for those who escaped to the beach. some people tried to seem fair to them and they were picked up by the waves and taken a dip in the sea some somewhat able to sort of buy when they would have us to buy bolts or food in the sea. so why is matisse such a labyrinth. there was not any strict who'd been planning and then the strict building codes of the house there were many houses built in the feet but it was not appropriate for such. interface.

built in such a place. but even after the fire construction continues unchecked. we need to put these nodes in our actions and that needs to be some practical information passed on to the people. i confine myself to in my office so i need to have the basic knowledge not to fear but to be prepared in the same way that in greece we have what to do in case of an earthquake and all these thinks . we need to take wild far just as seriously as other major catastrophes if we want our families to be safe in these areas. of.

technology on its own it is powerless against a mega fire. but with new prevention strategies to make our landscapes less flammable our firefighters have a chance. at this unique training site and must say fire crews from the north of france northern europe and even china and russia are getting ready for the challenge. because i'm going punk and dharma. on this. is. this album just on the wall and that's also music. that's a systemic one professor and if you know this album that's one of the you know you're welcome us if we're usually if we go for. growth and do this in the past i ship to the hospital to music specials on film to schick on film to who sits because that constant joint damage will be the.

the french firefighters form part of a new european union network. where crews from $34.00 countries have joined forces to extinguish fires all over europe sharing resources and cost. example sweden in 2080. coordination with all the number states and of the year europe and umbrella they were going to come with planes such as a boat to go from suzie 20 that also some neighboring countries from we don't as. a sport germany and so. this european collaboration provides a glimpse of the future of firefighting but that will be the big of what you're holding a 6 interest going for that up to. the rupee. to skid row my children to us on technology each set up to me food no to sit in on

a trial. could i'm not sure hope to sort of what. i live on rolling our fire adapted eco system so fire is going to be here no matter what. you learn to live with it you know you look at the weather forecast you know it's going to rain saturday so you don't plan to be outside saturday so same thing with small. you know if there's a big fire coming in and it's just like any other kind of weather pattern they have to plan around. you don't want to think about it because it's so scary if you do but you have to be prepared for it every day. after the last few fires and packing and unpacking i finally decided to keep my most important things in a box ready to go it's got its things like important papers some family treasures

memories some photos and everything is close to my front door so if nothing else could get grabbed it would be easy to get that box and get out of the house. the pyro scene the age of fire is here to stay whether we like it or not. and time is running out. we are a hell of an experiment on planet earth we have no other planet to go to this is the only place we can lay of what will the future hold how do we want our fire and smoke how do you want it he wanted big and hot and unbridled and belching smoke we can't be just moving back chairs on a sinking ship. we have about 20 years to get the needed work done we've

got the technological tools we've got the science we know what it takes we know how these forests work if we don't take any action today certainly it's kicking the can down the road for future generations. can we find a way to live with far before it is to live. in a perfect world we would put our launchers in our backyards and we watch it burn across the hillside and we would feel. that we could live with it and we would have felt threatened by it. to survive the age of mega fires we need to become once again a fire adapted species. and make peace with both far and the forest. can we learn to tame the beast and live to tell the tale.

you. can. use quite as soon as it seeks. to understand the world better we need to take a closer. experience knowledge

tomorrow today. it's going to deliver a place sunday morning once attending a la the summer music festival in st louis this year and they're modestly quiet. or even silent. is their music playing anywhere. the summer music festivals during the coronavirus tend to. march 20 more. people 60 minutes t w. w's crime fighters are back on the ever goes most successful radio drama series continues in this season the stories focus on haight street prevention no sustainable charcoal production the fall of a soda are available online and of course you can share and discuss on africa's

facebook page and other social media platforms the time fighters tune in no. place . to. this is e.w. news a live from berlin or russia's opposition leader alexina vonnie is on his way to germany for medical treatment of following a suspected of poisoning a plane carrying the comatose an avanti has it taken off from the russian city of arms heading for burlesque. also coming up on the shadow of the political crisis in belarus the deep end as yet or it.