What this site does not cover, and why

The rule we are following

Every ActSmall topic operates on a single editorial rule: where the named scientific and operational authorities converge, we display it; where they diverge or are silent, we do not invent a position. For fire that means the IPCC (climate-attribution science), NASA FIRMS and the European Forest Fire Information System (operational detection), the Global Fire Emissions Database (emissions), and the named national fire authorities (US NIFC, EU EFFIS, Australian AFAC, Canadian CIFFC). Where they converge we cite them. Where they have not, we say nothing.

Single-event climate attribution

"This specific wildfire was caused by climate change" is the headline framing of almost every major fire news cycle. It is not what the IPCC actually says. The IPCC AR6 working-group I chapter 11 (and the AR6 synthesis report) carefully separates trend attribution (changes in fire-weather days, dry-fuel availability, and large-fire frequency — where the evidence is medium-to-high confidence and increasing) from single-event attribution (which requires a specific extreme-event analysis by groups like World Weather Attribution and is published per event, not assumed)^[1]. Our map shows operational fire detections; we cite the IPCC where it has spoken; we do not assert single-event causation that the named bodies have not published.

Prescribed burning versus let-burn versus full suppression

How any specific country or region should balance prescribed (controlled) burning, managed wildfire ("let-burn" under monitoring), and active suppression is a real and contested operational question. Different fire ecologies require different answers. Australian eucalypt forests (long-evolved with fire), boreal forests in Canada and Russia, North American mixed-conifer forests, Mediterranean shrubland, and tropical peatlands each have their own evidence base, and the national fire agencies (AFAC, CIFFC, NIFC, EFFIS, ICONA) publish region-specific positions that do not generalise^[2]. We do not have a global "best fire-management policy" layer because there isn't one; we link to each country's named authority instead.

Wildfire-arson conspiracy theories

Each major fire season produces social-media claims that a specific large fire was deliberately set as part of an organised campaign (climate, land-use, or political). National-fire-agency post-incident investigations occasionally do find criminal arson causing specific small fires, and these are published openly — California CAL FIRE, Spain's UME, Greece's General Secretariat for Civil Protection. None of these published investigations have substantiated the organised-conspiracy framing the social-media claims rely on. We do not include unverified arson-attribution claims on the map; where a national authority has published an arson finding for a specific incident, we link to that finding.

Brand-by-brand household extinguisher and smoke-alarm rankings

Household fire safety is real and the named building-code authorities (NFPA in the US, the EU Construction Products Regulation, the UK BS 5839 and BS EN 3 standards) publish the device specifications that matter. We name those standards. We do not rate brands. UL/NFPA/CE-marked extinguishers of the appropriate class for the room (A, B, C, K) and dual-sensor (ionisation + photoelectric) smoke alarms with sealed 10-year batteries are the published recommendations — any compliant product meets the spec, and "the best brand" is a question the standard already answers^[3].

Indoor smoke from wildfires and household combustion

Wildfire smoke produces real and large indoor-air-quality impacts at distances of hundreds to thousands of kilometres downwind — the EPA and the BC Centre for Disease Control's published guidance is to use HEPA filtration, a clean-air room, and N95-grade masks during smoke events^[4]. We refer to these on the fire topic and link to the air-quality topic at air.actsmall.org for the indoor-air actions themselves. We do not produce a wildfire-smoke health-effects layer separately because the indoor-air-quality content already covers it.

"Forest management failure" versus "climate change" as the sole cause

Both framings are partially true and the named bodies have been explicit. The US Forest Service, USGS, and the IPCC AR6 chapter 11 all describe the modern western North American fire situation as a combination of climate-driven fuel-aridity trends and a multi-decadal fire-suppression legacy that built up fuel loads. We cite both. We do not assert that either alone is the explanation, and we do not amplify framings (from any political direction) that ascribe the cause to a single factor.

Where this leaves us

The fire topic covers what the IPCC, NASA FIRMS, EFFIS, and the national fire authorities have converged on: real-time fire detections (FIRMS / VIIRS / MODIS), fire-weather and drought context (Copernicus, NIFC, BoM), defensible-space and structure-hardening household actions (NFPA Firewise USA, CAL FIRE, Country Fire Authority Victoria), and wildfire-smoke indoor-air mitigation (EPA, BCCDC). Where the named bodies are silent or where the question is policy rather than household action, we say so.