In the Mythic Europe period, how common and how big are forest fires?
Of all the disasters afflicting places - famine, flood, plague, earthquake, storms, etc, I don't recall seeing much about fire.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say there was a degree of “who cares?”. Great fire on London got good press, but that was 1666. I’m thinking there was no shortage of forest for a while yet, so who cares if some trees burn. If no-one cares too much, it’s not getting written down anywhere.
I will acknowledge there is a large degree of speculation here, and if someone with real knowledge corrects, I am happy to be corrected.
While the ancient forests are being cleared in many parts of Europe by the time of the 13th Century, I imagine that there are a lot of inhabited places within a day’s walk of significant forests. So if the forests burn, wouldn’t that show up as ominous glows in the night, charcoal burners out of work, and Magi losing Vis sources, to name a few?
Don’t know about forest fires but several major European cities suffered catastrophic fires in the early medieval period. Bremen in 1041, London in 1135 and 1212, Utrecht in 1253 and Lubeck had 3 in 1157, 1241 and 1276. Mostly wooden medieval constructions and fire were not a good combination.
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Forest fires were probably relatively local affairs.
A- There was no effort to prevent or combat fires in the old forests, so when they did happen they burned out the available fuel, which tends to limit the scale of the fire. They weren’t modern American woodlands, where fuel piled up for decades.
B- Cultivated woodlands didn’t have a lot of fuel for wildfires, as the peasants tended to use a lot of fallen branches as domestic fire fuel or in construction. Woodland forests in more populated areas are also somewhat broken up, so a flash fire is a bit more comparmentalized.
When it did happen, it was a local disaster, of course, and easily blamed on (in Mythic Europe, caused by) evil spirits, witches, local sinful character, or God’s mysterious will.
Magi / covenants might earn some social credit by halting a fire, sheltering the now-homeless, feeding the peasantry, and so on, but the response will be case specific.
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Also keep in mind that a lot of the massive forest fires you see o the news are a result of invasive species. For example California has oil bearing trees that have edged out a lot of the natural growth of the region. Those are trees that burn hot and quickly, which leads to a lot of large forest fires when they are growing outside their native environments where lightning is far less common (plus the threat from man made fires). Thee are likely other differences as well, like a wetter native environment or growing further apart there. The point is that natural forests don’t tend to be as flammable as some where globe trotting modern humans have managed to throw a wrench into the works.
I mean sure forest fires happened, but they likely covered acres to square miles compared to what we see today.
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Now I’m wondering how the (drama queens) story-driven Faeries react to this sort of disaster, forest or city fire.
I don’t think they’d do much to repeat it, though. Too destructive.
Unless it is a glamoured illusion?
Great. You’ve invented “forest fires are a put-up job” truthers.
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The Great Fire of London of 1212 is already part of the backdrop to my saga.
I have had fun integrating @Fafnir’s suggestion into my Saga.
During the 13th century, Europe was experiencing the “Medieval Warm Period” which lasted from approx. 950 to 1250, where the continent experienced extreme weather events. Northern Europe saw wetter summers and colder winters whilst Mediterranean areas had much drier conditions. I would guess that this may have led to an increase in forest fires in the south (particularly the resinous pine forests of Greece, Spain and the Balkans). But has already been mentioned, they would have been much smaller in scale compared to the modern ones seen in the USA, etc.
Of course in Mythic Europe, forest fires could be started by the demon of wildfires.
From Realms of Power: The Infernal page 42.
Aerial Powers take the form of huge
human figures, often composed of or sur-
rounded by elemental matter. They cause
thunder and lightning, corrupt the air, and
cause pestilences. They are responsible for
storms at sea, earthquakes and avalanches,
blizzards and firestorms; in short, all natu-
ral disasters that can beset mankind. These
demons are notoriously hard to control,
and indiscriminate in their destruction.
Despite their name, the Aerial Powers
are not confined to tempests, winds, and
other weather phenomena. Each Aerial
Power has command over one particular
natural calamity; thus their ranks include
the demon of landslides, the demon of
wildfire, the demon of hail, and so forth.
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Not sure why demons would start forest fires. I mean unless there were people in that bit of forest at the time…
Generally I would think demons would prefer to burn down cities where they can terrify thousands of people at the same time, though the dominion aura might interfere with that. Plus it would depend on how much demons are “kill all humans” versus “corrupt all humans”.
There are a lot of inconsistencies in the setting that were inherited from Medieval theology.
I’m not saying it’s dragons…but it could be dragons.
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I mean, in all fairness, Dominion Aura doesn’t stop you from running around with a torch to various caches of oil.
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Are there not certain Angels equipped with flaming swords?
Dominion aura wouldn’t stop me from running around with torches and oil, but it might put a crimp in a demon’s attempt to do so.
Convincing some angry youth to do so however seems very much up a demon’s game plan.
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