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Why do systems managed for stability end in bigger collapses?

Systems managed for stability – a forest kept free of fire, a group that smooths over every conflict – can end in bigger collapses. Here trees grow, lightning strikes, and a strike that finds a tree burns its whole connected stand. Compare a forest left alone with one where most fires are put out.

Left alone

Fires put out

Fire sizes so far, log–log: ● left alone, ● fires put out.

What burns has to match what grows, so burned area per step stays about level. Putting fires out works like a lower lightning rate: fuel builds up, and the fires that do run take more of it.

Across the range, computed when the site was built: large fires (ochre, per 1000 steps) and area burned per step (blue). Click or use the arrow keys to set the fraction.

In a group: each person releases built-up tension to their contacts. “Loss” is the share of each released unit that is lost on the way; “hold back” is how much extra tension a person holds before a release may start. Cells show cascades reaching more than 30 of 300 people, per 10 000 drops, without → with holding back; ochre where holding back at least doubles them, blue where it at least halves them. Arrow keys move between cells.

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