Originally Posted by
Sunfish
LIGHTNING starts most major fires.
Does it?
That contention is contradicted by the findings of the only large-scale review of the causes of bushfires in the last 20 years, the Australian Institute of Criminology's 2008 analysis of some 280,000 bushfires as recorded by 18 different Australian fire and land management agencies representing all states and territories.
Some 40 percent of those fires did not have a cause assigned by the responding fire agency. However, of the 165,000-odd fires that did, the assigned causes were as follows:
Suspicious - 37%
Accidental - 35%
Deliberate - 13%
Natural - 6%
Re-ignition - 5%
Other - 4%
Within the 'Natural' causes category, lightning makes up about 66%.