Re: Earliest evidence of fire question

Phillip Bigelow (bh162@scn.org)
17 Aug 1996 19:02:45 GMT

herwin@mason2.gmu.edu (HARRY R. ERWIN) wrote:

>: : Lee checked that. He saw plenty of grass fires, but almost all man-caused.
>: : The issue did come up when he challenged the received wisdom back in the
>: : '50s. The problem with depending only on lightning is that regrowth is
>: : then much greater, and good-sized trees are fire-resistant.

>: Does he assume present day temperatures at 3 Mya ?
>: Apparently lightening is very sensitive to temperature,
>: a change of a couple of degrees can change the number of
>: lightening strokes four fold.

>Interesting point. Anyone have some paleoclimatic data on this?

I would guess that Lee would have checked this "small detail" out, himself,
before he came up with his theory.
You might check with him.
<pb>