############## Mailing list update #############
New change blog is online and linked in
The website and all other bits (screen savers, desktops) has been updated, to link to this new blog. The old blog was a blog only by name, whereas this one here has really all the advantages of a real blog, especially a way for my visitors to leave feedback.

More remarks on global fires and the fire display
I will be reducing the size of the fire icons so that it doesn't quite look like whole continents are totally ablaze. Instead I'll try to adjust the icon colours, to show different fire temperatures. I don't think it will make much difference.

I have calculated that with about 20,000 fires worldwide, each being larger than 50m²,
an area of at least 1x1 kilometers (1 km²) is burning. That doesn't sound that bad at first. After all, we are talking about a whole world here, and not Tom's garden.

However, that 1x1 kilometer square is burning constantly. You know from a fire that it doesn't stay in one place, but that it feeds on the vegetation and moves constantly. It is difficult to imagine a 1 by 1 kilometer large flame, which permanently needs new fuel to keep burning. The attrition rate of the global fires must be awesome. I will be asking UMD how much area of forest a typical fire consumes in a day.