Wildfire as area denial weapon?

How effective would a wildfire be to burn, immobilize or exclude forces from a forest, e.g. under California conditions? Are there any instances of manmade wildfires being set for strategic purposes (not happening as a side effect) in history?

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>inb4 Waco

bump

Depends on the situation and time of year really. Though for any size group of men with military equipment making a defensible area is pretty easy. Also there's the whole not wanting to destroy a forest aspect of it.

Firebombing of Tokyo.

This is actually a type of warfare, but I forgot the name of it. 'Grey War' or something?

The Romans lit a fire upwind of an entrenched enemy, forcing them into the open - exposing them to projectile fire.

Seems pretty stupid first of all you'd need hours maybe days in advance to get the fire big enough.

Second how are you going to keep the firefighters from just turning of the fire?

Third how are you going to keep the fire from turning on you? Not that it cant be done but it would require even more effort to create the fire ditches or whatever they are called

Fourth the barricade made by the fire will only be temporary and will destroy any natural defense a the woods might provide

Fifth if you get caught you can expect serious prison time

>from just turning off the fire
I guess all those Californian firemen in peacetime conditions are just fucking around

There were threats about terrorist arson and there have been claims made, and in Greece they found evidence but I'm not sure if they arrested people. It's great for terrorism because it's not very technical, you're perfectly obscured, and you have plenty of time to escape.

The problem with terrorists starting forest fires is that most of the public will just think it's natural.

A bomb sends a bigger than a fire that could have been natural

What else do you expect from Californians?

I remember reading about soldiers shooting tracer rounds into the grass and woods near enemy positions

The Japanese tried to do exactly this with both incendiary war balloons, and a bomber launched from a submarine aircraft carrier against forested areas on the East Coast.

Thanks to the small chance of fire balloons successfully hitting the required areas, an effective and aggressive fire-watching and and firefighting force and poor Japanese timing, they didn't have any real success.

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Uhhh "Scorched Earth" I think is the term
The Russians burned Moscow so Napolean's troops wouldn't have refuge for the winter. Vietnam and napalm, burned the trees so the VC couldn't hide in the thick jungles (among other reasons).

This was a pretty standard tactic for countering armies in open plains. The savannah is particularly succeptible to fires.

Used extensively by plainsmen. Can't hardly outrun a prairie fire, have to backburn, but if the wind is wrong it's not good

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The greek forest fires are probably deliberately lit.
I'm not saying it was the m*slims, but.

That EMP fiction story "one second after" or whatever has a pretty cool description of a small group pwning a larger attacking force with a woods fire.

i read it too. very awesome book

you can currently download the Defense Distributed files because of them despite being blocked by a faggot judge so theres that.