forest fiires and target shooting...

"The Utah fire is burning primarily south and west of Saratoga Springs, where wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour were expected to confound firefighting efforts, Lee said.

Officials said target shooters triggered the blaze near a city landfill on Thursday. It is the 20th fire in Utah started by target shooting this year, they said."

From: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-wildfires-idUSBRE85L1DD20120624

I must be tired tonight, but it seems to me that it must be very difficult to get sparks out of paper targets and copper/lead bullets.

Advice?

I'm curious to know how they know the shooting started the fire. I have once seen a fire started by shooting but it was on a dry grassy range and the firearm was a machine gun firing tracers. Otherwise, in the course of firing hundreds of thousands of rounds I've never seen a bullet start a fire. Far more likely the fire was started by a cigarette butt dropped by one of the shooters -- if the shooters had anything to do with it at all.

Started a lot of fires in the Army, but that was shooting ball & tracer.

Sure never saw one start from regular ammo.

I'm very confused about this myself. When I saw the blame falling on target shooters, my first reaction was... Is this a way for anti-gun advocates to increase bans on guns?

Holly said:

I'm very confused about this myself. When I saw the blame falling on target shooters, my first reaction was... Is this a way for anti-gun advocates to increase bans on guns?

Click to expand...

Depending on how dry the area was where they were shooting, what they were shooting AT, and what they were shooting with, its possible, I suppose. Could have been a couple of boneheads shooting FMJs into gas cans, for all we know...

Out here, during droughts, it gets dry enough that even sparks from static electricty events have triggered forrest fires.
One nearby was found to have been ignited by a spark from a muffler on a car that bottomed out on a rough patch on the highway- poof! up went nearly 100 acres of forrest, in no time.
Factor in pine trees, with exposed sap, and you may as well be firing incindiary rounds and napalm into the area.

They could have been shooting at Tannerite targets. Those things could start a grass fire if not properly used.

But I imagine that shooting has nothing to do with this latest fire--probably a carelessly dropped cigarette, or improperly maintained campfire.

More Info...

http://www.firearmsid.com/bullets/bullet1.htm


A lot of Wolf ammo is listed as "bimetal" jacketed. I'm guessing that means steel with a very thin copper overlay to keep from trashing barrels.

http://www.wolfammo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=12

An exact cause of the fire was under investigation, although Carpenter said it was human-caused.

[No word of "shooters" yet.]

Contrarian said:

"The Utah fire is burning primarily south and west of Saratoga Springs, where wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour were expected to confound firefighting efforts, Lee said.

Officials said target shooters triggered the blaze near a city landfill on Thursday. It is the 20th fire in Utah started by target shooting this year, they said."

From: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-wildfires-idUSBRE85L1DD20120624

I must be tired tonight, but it seems to me that it must be very difficult to get sparks out of paper targets and copper/lead bullets.

Advice?

Click to expand...

About a month ago I camped out near Mt. Rosa, at a location that until this year was pristine.

Some brain-dead idiots decided to use the trees as targets. More than half a dozen mature trees had been shot down and the place was littered with shotgun shells.

In addition, instead of putting their fire out cold (which would have left darkened wood), they'd left embers burning when departed the scene (which left dry white ash).





Could that have started a blaze? Oh, hell yeah!

Point being is that it only takes less than 1% of us to ruin our right to keep and bear arms for the rest of us. In other words, idiots like these are NOT on our side. These retards are in the same class of people as someone who would walk into a bank or restaurant and start blazing away for the hell of it. They're neither law-abiding nor responsible citizens, and I have absolutely no reservations whatsoever against turning their hides over to law enforcement for due processing.

Since their actions negatively impact all of us, we all should share similar opinions. If we can't police our own, then our government will not hesitate and step in to police each and every one of us. It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong, legal or illegal. They'll do it anyway, and put it upon us to fight the uphill battle required to get them to back down.

I say we not only not give them any reason to do so, but go the next mile, policing our own, and give them every reason to respect us as the honest, law-abiding citizens we are.

since9 said:

Since their actions negatively impact all of us, we all should share similar opinions. If we can't police our own, then our government will not hesitate and step in to police each and every one of us. It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong, legal or illegal. They'll do it anyway, and put it upon us to fight the uphill battle required to get them to back down.

I say we not only not give them any reason to do so, but go the next mile, policing our own, and give them every reason to respect us as the honest, law-abiding citizens we are.

Click to expand...

Quite right. People like this have been the ruination publicly available shooting spots on public land all over, and sowers of bad will towards shooters in every conceivable way. But you can only report them if you see them, and even if you did see something stupid or dangerous, does one really want to stick around to wait and be witness to more (and possible victim)?

I have a hard time believing a steel jacketed bullet could have sparked a fire, but the animals who litter up a place and shoot trees down wouldn't think twice about dropping a cig into the kindling we call a forest--or as you pointed out, letting a fire burn out.