View allAll Photos Tagged FireBreak
The city hall of Hamburg was built from 1886 to 1897 in Renaissance Revival style. The tower stands 112 m tall and is one of the landmarks of Hamburg.
The previous city hall was demolished (by explosives) during the great fire of 1842 to make a firebreak. But the explosion only damaged the old building and the fire could spread across the firebreak consuming the rubble of the damaged building.
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
In order to keep Chipera Prairie a prairie, we have to burn it now and then. Only about 20% of the prairie gets burned in any given year, so most overwintering insects like the meadow fritillary have a refuge where they won't be fried. My co-workers are lighting a backfire here, using a drip torch to start the fire systematically along a mowed firebreak. The firefighter in back is spraying water onto the firebreak to keep the fire burning only into the prairie, against the wind so it goes nice and slow.
One of several firebreaks we maintain in the forest here to prevent the spread of fire. There is far more unlceared land on the farm than than cultivated. Thanks for looking
Once in the forest it had such a migical, mystic atmosphere. The forest floor, trees and fallen branches all covered in soft and fragrant moss, everything was just so green. Miles and miles of forest tracks and firebreaks to walk, spectacular......
Last hour before the start of the Wales Firebreak Lockdown, stitch of three images taken on my phone on a walk after work.
Though the wind is blowing towards the right, the fire is actually spreading the opposite direction due to the dry grass being present and a small firebreak on the downwind side. Being upwind is definitely not all that's needed to stay safe from fires. As an observer at this controlled burn training exercise, I was required to stand behind the main firebreak pictured in the photo.
For the last 30 years my buddy and I have been traveling to Wisconsin to bike and camp in the fall in the Nicolette National Forest. We no longer tour with full packs or camp in small tents, but we still enjoy the ride.
Max was in heaven! He could take himself off into the forest, run along the tracks and firebreaks and swim in the stream and sit a while on gthe soft moss.....
Out of bounds at Heavenly, Lake Tahoe, area called Firebreak.
Go through an exit gate warning "You Could Die", and a 3,000'+ fall-line descent into town is all yours.
Due to the drought, haven't been able to access this for three years.
Winter Is Back?
SteveD.
2nd day of Firebreak Lockdown here in Wales. This is the Weeping Cherry Tree in my back garden taken in between heavy showers this morning. It's not only the tree that's weeping either because last night I was in despair over people spouting venom in the news and Social Media about who / what is wrong, who/ what is right . I turned off all my devices and escaped into a book .
The artistic reputation of Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) has increased considerably in recent years. Not helped or hindered (cross out what is desired) by academic training, he developed a unique style in which he balances painting and drawing. The fact that he paints with Indian ink is already challenging, the subtle addition of colored pencil is completely unusual.
Spilliaert's depictions are highly symbolic (see also previous post in this stream). In a late ink painting like 'Firebreak between the firs' the year is important to understand the scope. In 1944, the last year of the Second World War, Hitler's defeat was already looming, but the end was bitter. Hunger, cold and the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers preceded peace.
This exhibition in The Hague builds a bridge between Léon Spilliaert and Dirk Braeckman, who never knew each other. What is that bridge? “That is visualizing what you cannot see,” says curator Thijs de Raedt. “Both are nocturnal animals that intuitively head for the magic of deep black.”
The fact that we now see similarities between the two artists also has to do with the revaluation of symbolism and Spilliaert in particular. In the 1970s, there was a renewed sensitivity to indeterminate and uncanny places. In Belgium, a victim of two World Wars, people are perhaps more receptive to that than elsewhere.
Tom and I spent five wonderful autumn days biking and camping in the Nicolette National Forest. There are no homes, no business, few cars and no signs except identifying road numbers.
Australian Magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen
+===============+
Tis true, I'm fascinated by Magpies.
This one was hunting over a firebreak in a paddock.
I am pretty sure that it was able to hear the insects, rather than see them, as it cocked its head and moved it slightly to get the location, then simply strolled over and pulled it out.
Photographed in Namibia - Safari vehicle, no cover
Just as I think a Marabou Stork is one of the homeliest birds in Africa, I think the lilac-breasted roller is one of the most attractive. I doubt that there would ever be a consensus on the world's most beautiful bird, but the Lilac-breasted Roller should surely be in the top ten of the competition, IMO. I'm still stunned by the colorful beauty of this species.
=======================
From Wikipedia: The lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus) is an African bird of the roller family, Coraciidae. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, and is a vagrant to the southern Arabian Peninsula. It prefers open woodland and savanna, and it is for the most part absent from treeless places. Usually found alone or in pairs, it perches conspicuously at the tops of trees, poles or other high vantage points from where it can spot insects, lizards, scorpions, snails, small birds and rodents moving about on the ground. Nesting takes place in a natural hole in a tree where a clutch of 2–4 eggs are laid, and incubated by both parents, who are extremely aggressive in defence of their nest, taking on raptors and other birds. During the breeding season the male will rise to a fair height (69 to 144 metres), descending in swoops and dives, while uttering harsh, discordant cries. The sexes are different in coloration, and juveniles lack the long tail streamers of adults. This species is unofficially considered the national bird of Kenya.
Feeding:
The diet of the lilac-breasted roller consists of arthropods and small vertebrates, including ground-dwelling insects, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and millipedes, snails, and a variety of small vertebrates, including small birds. Slow-moving lizards, chameleons and snakes, and the blind, burrowing Afrotyphlops and Leptotyphlops species are especially vulnerable to them when crossing roads. In East Africa, they join other perch hunters like Taita fiscals and pale flycatchers to make opportunistic use of grassland fires, and in South Africa are likewise seen in association with kites, storks, swallows and bee-eaters when burning of firebreaks drives small animals unto roads.
Because they feed mainly on terrestrial prey, lilac-breasted rollers will perch to scout from a higher vantage point (including from atop of large herbivorous mammals) before swooping in and grabbing prey with their beaks. If their prey is small, they will swallow it on the ground. These aggressive birds will carry larger prey back to a perch and beat it until it is dismembered.
Afr-0I7A3537fFlkr-2
Although the vines were a good firebreak ...glowing embers and flaming debris were carried by wicked winds from the Northeast across the Valley between St Helena and Calistoga to burn large areas of the mountains on the West side of the Valley also.
Trees are big business in Argyll meaning that there is no shortage of forest tracks to walk. To help control forest fires (not that it ever gets dry enough in Argyll for it to be a problem!) there are regular large gaps in the trees to help hinder the spread of the flames.
DAY 10 - Firebreak Challenge 🔥 - Calling this one Monday Blues and I’m not even sorry for the cheesy pun!
Sonoma Valley, CA
If you look closely at this picture, you might see how close the recent fires in Sonoma Valley came to this storied winery (look for the scorched trees). In traveling the area, we noticed how the vineyards acted like firebreaks. Good thing too.
Fort Apache guys are from White River, Arizona. More BIA firemen. Fine young guys and they're probably having the time of their lives. Folks around here think firefighters are walking on water these days.
This bulldozer cleared a very nice firebreak down to the dirt for a prescribed burn training exercise. As an observer I was required to stand behind the firebreak since I did not have the type of protective clothing worn by firefighters. Some of the media reps were in the know and fully outfitted, which allowed them to get closer to the action.
I’ve recently been experiencing a lack of creative motivation and activity. Wales has just begun a two week circuit breaker lockdown so I thought I might take the opportunity to test and build my photographic skill set, so every day of this mini-lockdown I’m going to pick something from our small 1 bed flat to photograph.
I started today with our new loose leaf teapot. I’ve never done product photography but it’s something I’ve always wanted to have a go at.
(If you like this photo, you'll probably also like this and this, but you'll hate this.)
I had a good adventure last night.
It was Saturday, I had nothing planned for the evening, and I hadn't done any country night photography for a while. So what could be better than a trip to Mogumber? I'd never been to Mogumber, I only knew vaguely where it was, and I had it on good authority that there was a CBH terminal there.
As I left Perth, I dropped something off to a mate in Quinns Rocks. His advice for getting out of Perth was to double back about 5km and take a main road to the highway. But I decided to save myself about 15km by heading further north and finding a "back way" into Muchea. I soon learnt that there were plenty of roads between Quinns and Muchea. However, the roads were in woeful condition (the good ones were limestone, the bad ones were soft sand - virtually firebreaks), and it seemed none of them lead all the way to Muchea.
After about half an hour of driving around and being generally lost (if that's possible when you have a GPS), I found a way that would lead me to the road I would have been on if I'd doubled back. I was sticking to the limestone and avoiding sand tracks because my car is not suitable for off-roading on soft surfaces, and it had been raining a few hours earlier. Eventually I realised I was about 500m from the road *if* I took a sand track. I decided to go for it. All went well for most of the way, but I made a bad choice of path when I was only 150m from the bitumen. In she went, and I couldn't back out. The front wheels span at turbo speed whenever I tried to move. I got out to investigate. I could hear cars on the bitumen and the light was fading (I was more worried about the photo opportunities I was losing, rather than seeing my way around the bogged car).
There was no convenient plant material lying around to stuff under the wheels, so I tried a blanket from the car but it gave no traction. I then realised that the problem was a bank of sand that the chassis was resting on, and had just started digging it away by hand when four young blokes showed up in two 4WDs. I explained my predicament and they kindly towed me out without laughing as much as they should have. Once I was out, the rest of the trip was easy. I bet they had a good chuckle afterwards though - a moron in a tiny front wheel drive, bogged on a sand track in the forest. My thanks once more to those guys - they saved my night.
The rest of the journey was easy. A stop at Muchea for fuel and food, then on to Mogumber (40km directly north of Bindoon). There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the moon had gone down just before I arrived, and the Milky Way was on full show. The CBH bins were illuminated by the nearby pub and the occasional car going past. Apart from being a bit chilly (4 degrees), it was an absolute joy once I was there.
On the east side of the Des Plaines River there are some beautiful surviving groves of Sugar/Black Maples. They survived in groups here because the river acted as a firebreak for the prairie fires coming in from the west. At least that's the theory, and It makes a lot of sense. How the groves survived after the area was settled is another question.
A good deal of the preserved forests along the Des Plaines have become choked with invasive species over the years. These maple forests are different because not many plants other than maples can grow under the maple canopy's intense shade. These remaining groves have an open, airy feel with long sight lines and amazing fall colors.
Along the Des Plaines River Trail at this time of year, people will make a special trip to come out and see the fall colors in their favorite section of forest.
I hope your week is going well and thank you for viewing.
LaGrange County, Indiana
A Big Sand Tiger Beetle taken in a narrow sandy firebreak at the Pigeon River Fish & Wildlife Area.
The burnbot is a piece of machinery specifically designed to use in prescribed burn situations. It contains a fire chamber below which quickly burns a strip of grass, then extinguishes it. It's useful for establishing a perimeter for a controlled burn. Firefighters monitor the burn in case of any flare ups of the fire. The burnbot is still in the testing phase and was demonstrated at a recent training event for people to learn about prescribed burns. I was an observer at the event.
An interesting point is that once the grass burns it cools down quickly and can be walked on, becoming one of the safer places to stand. As an observer I am behind an entirely different firebreak which was cleared by a bulldozer.
I hoped the extremely narrow format would create a claustrophobic feel and reflect the slim line of light between the trees in this part of the wood.
Details: shot on pinhole, 6x12 format on 120 Ilford HP5+, processed in Microphen.
Poem.
Sun-dappled, forested slopes of pine plantation and autumnal, deciduous trees in gold, yellow and red.
Black Down stretches its sandstone neck to the ominous clouds,
being West Sussex’s loftiest peak.
It peers eastwards and southwards over the equally wooded Sussex Weald, with splendid views to the Surrey Hills and South Downs.
Late autumn in such an arboreal wonderland offers a spellbinding kaleidoscope of colour.
No wonder the Surrey Hills and adjacent South Downs National Park are “Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty,”
beautiful splendour……indeed!
A wonderful white landscape - that's what I've been waiting for since winter 2010/11!
This is a shot from our walk this morning, on the plantations above West Quantoxhead. I'd hoped to capture some straight pines with snow blasted trunks bu couldn't find the right composition... so tried this wide angle of the trees separated by a fire break.
Oh for a tilt-shift lens.... but the distortion does kind of add to the image I think. Really hard with the flat light to prevent overexposing the snow, especially with the central bright region being vertical - come to think of it I could have stacked 2 ND grads and created a darker central band, but didn't think at the time.
Winter wonderland is oft-used but appropriate this weekend - on Saturday I took the mountain bike up to Hodder's Combe and was alone with nature for a good hour or so as no one else had ventured as far.
My lame attempt at doing something for Halloween, bearing in mind that due to Wales' Firebreak Lockdown, Halloween toys etc aren't available in shops because they're classed as 'non essential goods' However, deep in my prop box, I dug out a Lego head piece called , 'The Screamer' and edited it in-camera with the fish eye effect. I've put the original shot in comments and the measurements next along in my photostream HMM!
This was today's (supposedly)banker shot still on the Macro Mondays theme of Jigsaws. However seeing as it's the first day out of Firebreak Lockdown today in Wales we took the opportunity to travel to Carmarthen to meet with our son seeing as we've only seen him five times in total since March.
Wrapping up my Southern Arizona Adventure 2024 with a visit to Amerind Foundation and Texas Canyon. This is stage 9 of 9.
travelasker.com/what-is-the-formation-process-of-texas-ca...
Formation and composition of rocks
The rocks in Texas Canyon are primarily composed of granite, gneiss, and schist. These rocks were formed through a process of geological metamorphism, which changed their composition and structure over time. Granite is one of the most common types of rock found in the area and is known for its distinctive pink color. Gneiss and schist are also common and are known for their unique textures and patterns.
Erosion and weathering played a significant role in shaping the landscape of Texas Canyon. Over time, the rocks in the area were subjected to intense weathering, which caused them to break down and form the distinctive boulder formations that are found throughout the canyon. Erosion also played a role in shaping the landscape, as the water that flowed through the area created deep gullies and canyons that are still visible today.
Formation of the unique boulder formations
The unique boulder formations in Texas Canyon were formed through a combination of tectonic forces, erosion, and weathering. The rocks in the area were subjected to immense pressure, which caused them to fracture and crack. Over time, the cracks were widened by the forces of erosion, creating the distinctive boulder formations that are found throughout the canyon.
www.amerind.org/texascanyonnaturepreserve/
Chat GPT
Texas Canyon is a striking natural area located in Cochise County, southeastern Arizona, along Interstate 10 between Benson and Willcox. It is renowned for its dramatic landscape, characterized by massive granite boulders scattered across the desert terrain, creating a rugged and picturesque environment.
The granite boulders in Texas Canyon were formed through millions of years of erosion and weathering. These formations, often precariously balanced, provide a unique and photogenic sight, making the canyon a popular stop for travelers and photographers.
The area is surrounded by the Chiricahua Mountains to the south and other nearby ranges, offering expansive views of the Sonoran Desert with its mix of desert vegetation, including cacti and mesquite trees. The light, especially at sunrise and sunset, enhances the golden hues of the rocks, adding to the area's charm.
Texas Canyon has a rich history tied to the Chiricahua Apache people, who once roamed these lands. Later, it became home to early settlers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Canyon
Texas Canyon is a valley in Cochise County, Arizona,[1] about 20 miles east of Benson on Interstate 10. Lying between the Little Dragoon Mountains to the north and the Dragoon Mountains to the south and known for its giant granite boulders, the canyon attracts rockhounds and photographers.
www.arizonahighways.com/article/texas-canyon-nature-preserve
The giant granite boulders along Interstate 10 in Southeastern Arizona have been gracing postcards for decades, but that otherworldly landscape was always off-limits to the general public. Not anymore. Thanks to the Amerind Foundation, 6 miles of trails in the brand-new Texas Canyon Nature Preserve are now available to those who want a closer look.
By Suzanne Wright
Zipping past Texas Canyon, an hour southeast of Tucson, it’s impossible not to notice the boulders — giant, eye-catching piles of granite, like something out of The Flintstones. But other than providing scenery along Interstate 10 — particularly at a rest area just down the highway from the kitschy attraction known as The Thing — the area has long been off-limits to curious travelers who wanted to stretch their legs and get a closer look.
There are several private landowners in Texas Canyon, including Triangle T Guest Ranch, which has some trails for its guests. But none had opened its trails to the public until this past October, when the portion of the area owned and managed by the Amerind Foundation had its ribbon-cutting. After a multi-year campaign that raised $250,000, the Texas Canyon Nature Preserve — on land previously closed to the public for 85 years, and where the organization’s founding family raised quarter horses until 1968 — is open to all.
“The idea had been percolating with the Amerind Foundation board and management for years,” says Eric Kaldahl, the president, CEO and chief curator of the foundation. “The response from the surrounding community has been very enthusiastic. We welcomed more visitors last October than we’ve seen for the past 10 years.”
The preserve, located just off I-10 between Benson and Willcox, is part of a 1,900-acre campus that includes the Amerind Museum. More than 6 miles of trails wind past balanced rocks, fantastical shapes and rocky spires in open, sun-warmed high-desert grasslands studded with cactuses, wildflowers and trees. The trail is self-guided, although Kaldahl hopes to offer guided sunrise and sunset hikes in the next year. Visitors can pay a $12 admission fee for just the trails or $20 to visit both the trails and the museum.
Trail designer Sirena Rana knows the landscape can look intimidating, but she purposely designed the trails to be “perfect little morsels.” Rana didn’t grow up hiking, so she aimed to make the trails a comfortable experience for all ages and abilities. There are no steep elevation gains, and dirt, rather than gravel, makes for more stability. And Rana recalls walking for miles and miles over several months to understand the land and ensure the trails were constructed to shed water, limit erosion and provide firebreaks.
“Texas Canyon is one of the most unique landscapes in the Southwest, formed by millions of years of wind and rain weathering the granite,” she says, likening it to Joshua Tree National Park and the Wilderness of Rock on Mount Lemmon. “It’s very unusual that it’s right off a major interstate and just an hour from a major metropolitan area,” she adds. “This is one of the greatest outdoor sculpture gardens in the world designed by Mother Nature. I’m so pleased with how it turned out.”
Elsewhere along the trail, signage reflects the Amerind Museum’s mission of fostering knowledge and understanding of Indigenous peoples. Acknowledging that these are ancestral lands, the signs feature O’odham, English and Spanish text, in that order — and Kaldahl hopes to add Apache, too.
Additionally, Indigenous people have collected basket-weaving materials from these lands for generations, and they remain free to access the grounds.
Haiku Thoughts:
Stone giants whisper,
Texas Canyon's quiet grace,
Time's hand carves the sky.
Southern Arizona Adventure 2024
I believe this is Goldeneye. Any correction will be appreciated.
Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona, Anne Orth Epple pp299 plates 439 et seq.
Goldeneye or Viguiera
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahiopsis_laciniata
Bahiopsis laciniata is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names San Diego County sunflower, San Diego viguiera and tornleaf goldeneye. It is native to the deserts and dry mountain slopes of northwestern Mexico (States of Sonora and Baja California), its distribution extending north as far as Ventura County, California.[2][3]
The habitat of Bahiopsis laciniata includes chaparral and coastal sage scrub. It is a hairy, resinous shrub growing to a maximum height well over one meter. The leaves have lance-shaped blades up to 5 centimeters long which are glandular and shiny with resin. The blades have smooth or shallowly toothed edges which are sometimes rolled under or crinkled. The inflorescence is a solitary sunflower-like flower head or cyme of several heads. The flower head has several yellow ray florets measuring 6 millimeters to over a centimeter long. The fruit is an achene tipped with a pappus.[2]
Wrapping up my Southern Arizona Adventure 2024 with a visit to Amerind Foundation and Texas Canyon. This is stage 9 of 9.
www.amerind.org/texascanyonnaturepreserve/
Chat GPT
Texas Canyon is a striking natural area located in Cochise County, southeastern Arizona, along Interstate 10 between Benson and Willcox. It is renowned for its dramatic landscape, characterized by massive granite boulders scattered across the desert terrain, creating a rugged and picturesque environment.
The granite boulders in Texas Canyon were formed through millions of years of erosion and weathering. These formations, often precariously balanced, provide a unique and photogenic sight, making the canyon a popular stop for travelers and photographers.
The area is surrounded by the Chiricahua Mountains to the south and other nearby ranges, offering expansive views of the Sonoran Desert with its mix of desert vegetation, including cacti and mesquite trees. The light, especially at sunrise and sunset, enhances the golden hues of the rocks, adding to the area's charm.
Texas Canyon has a rich history tied to the Chiricahua Apache people, who once roamed these lands. Later, it became home to early settlers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Canyon
Texas Canyon is a valley in Cochise County, Arizona,[1] about 20 miles east of Benson on Interstate 10. Lying between the Little Dragoon Mountains to the north and the Dragoon Mountains to the south and known for its giant granite boulders, the canyon attracts rockhounds and photographers.
www.arizonahighways.com/article/texas-canyon-nature-preserve
The giant granite boulders along Interstate 10 in Southeastern Arizona have been gracing postcards for decades, but that otherworldly landscape was always off-limits to the general public. Not anymore. Thanks to the Amerind Foundation, 6 miles of trails in the brand-new Texas Canyon Nature Preserve are now available to those who want a closer look.
By Suzanne Wright
Zipping past Texas Canyon, an hour southeast of Tucson, it’s impossible not to notice the boulders — giant, eye-catching piles of granite, like something out of The Flintstones. But other than providing scenery along Interstate 10 — particularly at a rest area just down the highway from the kitschy attraction known as The Thing — the area has long been off-limits to curious travelers who wanted to stretch their legs and get a closer look.
There are several private landowners in Texas Canyon, including Triangle T Guest Ranch, which has some trails for its guests. But none had opened its trails to the public until this past October, when the portion of the area owned and managed by the Amerind Foundation had its ribbon-cutting. After a multi-year campaign that raised $250,000, the Texas Canyon Nature Preserve — on land previously closed to the public for 85 years, and where the organization’s founding family raised quarter horses until 1968 — is open to all.
“The idea had been percolating with the Amerind Foundation board and management for years,” says Eric Kaldahl, the president, CEO and chief curator of the foundation. “The response from the surrounding community has been very enthusiastic. We welcomed more visitors last October than we’ve seen for the past 10 years.”
The preserve, located just off I-10 between Benson and Willcox, is part of a 1,900-acre campus that includes the Amerind Museum. More than 6 miles of trails wind past balanced rocks, fantastical shapes and rocky spires in open, sun-warmed high-desert grasslands studded with cactuses, wildflowers and trees. The trail is self-guided, although Kaldahl hopes to offer guided sunrise and sunset hikes in the next year. Visitors can pay a $12 admission fee for just the trails or $20 to visit both the trails and the museum.
Trail designer Sirena Rana knows the landscape can look intimidating, but she purposely designed the trails to be “perfect little morsels.” Rana didn’t grow up hiking, so she aimed to make the trails a comfortable experience for all ages and abilities. There are no steep elevation gains, and dirt, rather than gravel, makes for more stability. And Rana recalls walking for miles and miles over several months to understand the land and ensure the trails were constructed to shed water, limit erosion and provide firebreaks.
“Texas Canyon is one of the most unique landscapes in the Southwest, formed by millions of years of wind and rain weathering the granite,” she says, likening it to Joshua Tree National Park and the Wilderness of Rock on Mount Lemmon. “It’s very unusual that it’s right off a major interstate and just an hour from a major metropolitan area,” she adds. “This is one of the greatest outdoor sculpture gardens in the world designed by Mother Nature. I’m so pleased with how it turned out.”
Elsewhere along the trail, signage reflects the Amerind Museum’s mission of fostering knowledge and understanding of Indigenous peoples. Acknowledging that these are ancestral lands, the signs feature O’odham, English and Spanish text, in that order — and Kaldahl hopes to add Apache, too.
Additionally, Indigenous people have collected basket-weaving materials from these lands for generations, and they remain free to access the grounds.
Haiku Thoughts:
Stone giants whisper,
Texas Canyon's quiet grace,
Time's hand carves the sky.
Southern Arizona Adventure 2024
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MUST BE VIEWED LARGE - PRESS "L" - 12 shot pano stitch and blend
Pushing the limits of photography with this one I know, but a canvas would work for something like this in my opinion... More a dreamscape than a snap of exactly how this amazing scene played out in front of my eyes!
Back burning is a way of reducing the amount of flammable material during a bushfire by starting small fires along a man made or natural firebreak in front of a main fire front. It is called back burning because the small fires are designed to 'burn back towards the main fire front'. The basic reason for back burning is so that there is little material that can burn when the main fire reaches the burnt area. The firebreaks that may be used to start a line of fires along could be a river, road or a bulldozed clearing etc.
The Imperial Fora are a series of monumental fora (public squares), constructed in Rome over a period of one and a half centuries, between 46 BC and 113 AD. The fora were the center of the Roman Republic and of the Roman Empire.
The Imperial Fora, while not part of the Roman Forum, are located relatively close to each other. Julius Caesar was the first to build in this section of Rome and rearranged both the Forum and the Comitium, another forum type space designated for politics, to do so. These fora were the centres of politics, religion and economy in the ancient Roman Empire.
During the early 20th century, Mussolini restored the Imperial Fora as part of his campaign to evoke and emulate the past glories of Ancient Rome, but he also built the Via dei Fori Imperiali across the middle of the site. The modern street and its heavy traffic has proved a source of damage to the buildings because of vibration and pollution. There have been a number of proposals to remove the road, but none have taken effect.
Julius Caesar decided to construct a large forum bearing his name. This forum was inaugurated in 46 BC, although it was probably incomplete at this time and was finished later by Augustus.
The Forum of Caesar was constructed as an extension to the Roman Forum. The Forum was used as a replacement venue to the Roman Forum for public affairs as well as government; it was also designed as a celebration of Caesar's power. Caesar had placed, on the front of his forum, a temple devoted to Venus Genetrix, since Caesar's family (gens Julia) claimed to descend by Venus through Aeneas. A statue of Caesar himself riding Bucephalus, the celebrated horse of Alexander the Great, was placed in front of the temple, to symbolise absolute power.[citation needed] This centralised vision corresponded to the ideological function, following the propaganda of the Hellenistic sanctuaries; also the choice of the Forum site carried a meaning: the future dictator didn't want to be far from the central power, represented in the Curia, seat of the Senate. In fact, not long before Caesar's death, the Senate agreed to reconstruct the Curia on the site.
In the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, in which Augustus and Mark Antony worked together and avenged Caesar's death, defeating the forces of Brutus and Cassius, Augustus vowed to build the Temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"). The incomplete forum was inaugurated, after 40 years of construction, in 2 BC, adding the second monumental square, the Forum of Augustus.
This new complex lies at right angles to the Forum of Caesar. The temple consists of a very tall wall, and this still distinguishes itself from the popular neighbourhood of Suburra. This high wall served as a firebreak, protecting the Forum area from the frequent conflagrations from which Rome suffered. The rectangular square has long deep porticos with a surface that widens into large semicircular exedras.
Recently one more slightly smaller exedra was found south on the wall bordering the Forum of Trajan, meaning that for the sake of symmetry there must have been other exedra demolished to make room for the forum of Nerva, rising the number to four and not two exedras. This completely changed the layout for the south part of the Forum of Augustus, meaning that it is much more similar to the Forum of Trajan and a new theory for this southern part of the forum suggests that in fact there was a basilica between the two new exedras (like in the Forum of Trajan). This supports the numerous ancient authors that tell us the forum was used as a court of law.
The entire decoration of the Forum was tightly connected to the ideology of Augustus. According to myth, Rome herself was born from the god Mars through Romulus. This forum was occupied by many plebeians as well as senators.
In 75 AD, the Temple of Peace, also known as the Forum of Vespasian, was built under Emperor Vespasian. Separated from the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Caesar by the Argiletum, which connected the Roman Forum to the Subura, the temple faced the Velian Hill (in the direction of the Colosseum). The fact that this structure is not mentioned as having a civil function has prevented it from being classified as a true Forum. Therefore, the structure was simply identified as the Temple of Peace (Templum Pacis) until the late Empire.
The shape of the square was also different: the temple was constructed as a large apsidal hall that opened up like an exedra at the bottom of the portico. A row of columns distinguished the portico from the temple. The central area was not paved like other fora and served as a garden, with pools and pedestals for statues, so that it was similar to an open-air museum.
The monument was built to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem. One of the chambers opened at the end of the porticos housed the Forma Urbis Romae, a marble map of ancient Rome, made in the Severan period (3rd century) by drawing on the marble slab that covered the wall. The wall is now part of the façade of the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, where the holes used to mount the slabs of the map can still be seen. The Temple of Peace is also said to have housed the Menorah from Herod's Temple.
Domitian decided to unify the previous complex and the free remaining irregular area, between the Temple of Peace and the Fora of Caesar and Augustus, and build another monumental forum which connected all of the other fora.
The limited space, partially occupied by one of the exedrae of the Forum of Augustus and by the via dell'Argileto, obliged Domitian to build the lateral porticos as simply decorations of the bounding walls of the forum. The temple, dedicated to Minerva as protector of the emperor, was built leaning on the exedra of the Forum of Augustus, so that the remaining space became a large monumental entrance (Porticus Absidatus) for all the fora.
Because of the death of Domitian, the forum was inaugurated by his successor, Nerva, who gave his own name to it. The Forum of Nerva is also known as Transitional Forum, because it worked as an access way, just like via dell'Argileto had done.
It is probable that Domitian's projects were more ambitious than the building of the small Forum of Nerva and probably under his reign they started to remove the small saddle that united the Capitoline Hill to the Quirinal Hill, thus blocking the Fora towards Campus Martius, near to modern Piazza Venezia.
The project was resumed by Trajan with the construction of Trajan's Forum between 112 and 113. The occasion was the conquest of Dacia, whose spoils paid for this celebration of the military conquests of Rome.
The preparation of the Forum required a lot of work. It was necessary to remove the hilly saddle, and to support the cut of Quirinal Hill through the building of Trajan's market. The Forum square was closed by the Basilica Ulpia, with Trajan's Column at its back. In front of the basilica, a monumental façade was the background of a large, equestrian sculpture of the Emperor. The last Forum was also the biggest and greatest.
Photographed in South Africa - Safari vehicle, no cover
Please click on the image to view it at its largest size
Just as I think a Hooded Vulture is one of the homeliest birds in Africa, I think the lilac-breasted roller is one of the most attractive. I doubt that there would ever be a consensus on the world's most beautiful bird, but the Lilac-breasted Roller should surely be in the top ten of the competition, IMO. I'm still stunned by the colorful beauty of this species.
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From Wikipedia: The lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus) is an African bird of the roller family, Coraciidae. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, and is a vagrant to the southern Arabian Peninsula. It prefers open woodland and savanna, and it is for the most part absent from treeless places. Usually found alone or in pairs, it perches conspicuously at the tops of trees, poles or other high vantage points from where it can spot insects, lizards, scorpions, snails, small birds and rodents moving about on the ground. Nesting takes place in a natural hole in a tree where a clutch of 2–4 eggs are laid, and incubated by both parents, who are extremely aggressive in defence of their nest, taking on raptors and other birds. During the breeding season the male will rise to a fair height (69 to 144 metres), descending in swoops and dives, while uttering harsh, discordant cries. The sexes are different in coloration, and juveniles lack the long tail streamers of adults. This species is unofficially considered the national bird of Kenya.
Feeding:
The diet of the lilac-breasted roller consists of arthropods and small vertebrates, including ground-dwelling insects, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and millipedes, snails, and a variety of small vertebrates, including small birds. Slow-moving lizards, chameleons and snakes, and the blind, burrowing Afrotyphlops and Leptotyphlops species are especially vulnerable to them when crossing roads. In East Africa, they join other perch hunters like Taita fiscals and pale flycatchers to make opportunistic use of grassland fires, and in South Africa are likewise seen in association with kites, storks, swallows and bee-eaters when burning of firebreaks drives small animals unto roads.
Because they feed mainly on terrestrial prey, lilac-breasted rollers will perch to scout from a higher vantage point (including from atop of large herbivorous mammals) before swooping in and grabbing prey with their beaks. If their prey is small, they will swallow it on the ground. These aggressive birds will carry larger prey back to a perch and beat it until it is dismembered.
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