Bushfire in Madagascar: Natural Hazard, Useful Tool, and Change Agent

Abstract

Bushfire does not usually figure on lists of natural hazards in Madagascar, despite annual damages to forests, woodlots, and farms. This chapter argues that the lack of attention to fire comes from the fact that fire is multivalent, ambiguous, and flexible, being simultaneously an occasional ‘hazard’ for thatch-roof huts or crop fields, a ‘useful tool’ that farmers and pastoralists use to manage vegetation, and a major force, or ‘change agent’, that transforms land and forest. The chapter builds on the concept of pyric phases, identifying six important pyric phases in which fire serves, or is perceived to serve, different roles as hazard, tool, or change agent.