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wildfire = αγροτοδασική πυρκαγιά, πυρκαγιά υπαίθρου, ανεξέλεγκτη πυρκαγιά / φωτιά

nickel

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Τι είναι, τέλος πάντων, οι wildfires;

Στην αρχική χρήση της λέξης, σύμφωνα με το OED, το wild αναφερόταν είτε στη φυσική προέλευση μιας πυρκαγιάς (π.χ. κεραυνός) είτε στο ότι συμβαίνει έξω από τον αστικό ιστό (wild often implying ‘natural, not artificially produced’, or ‘out of doors, not domestic’). Θα μπορούσε να πει κανείς ότι στα βρετανικά αγγλικά έχει εκλείψει αυτή η σημασία, ότι παραμένει μόνο στον ιδιωματισμό spread like wildfire, αν κρίνει από τα γραφόμενα του Quinion ή το γεγονός ότι δεν την περιέχει το ODE. Όμως την έχουν όλα τα άλλα πρόσφατα αγγλικά λεξικά, που σημαίνει ότι η αμερικανική χρήση διεθνοποιήθηκε. Π.χ. σε σελίδα του BBC:
Greek firefighters are facing another day battling wildfires still threatening areas north of Athens.

Από κάποια λεξικά:
ODE: μόνο τις σημασίες για το υγρό πυρ και τους φωσφορισμούς των βάλτων και: spread like wildfire spread with great speed: the news had spread like wildfire.
Encarta: rapidly spreading fire: a fierce fire that spreads rapidly, especially in an area of wilderness
Wiktionary: 1. A rapidly spreading fire, often occurring in wildland areas, that is out of control.
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: a fire which is burning strongly and out of control on an area of grass or bushes in the countryside: Major wildfires have destroyed thousands of acres in Idaho, Oregon and Montana.
Macmillan: a fire that starts in an area of countryside and spreads very quickly.
Longman: especially American English a fire that moves quickly and cannot be controlled.

Έχει ενδιαφέρον το κείμενο του Quinion (2002), αν και πρέπει να θεωρηθεί ξεπερασμένο σήμερα σε σημεία του:

“Sydney braces for surge in wildfires” said a headline on the BBC Online site earlier this week about the fires raging in New South Wales. That was an odd-sounding choice of word, so far has wildfire moved — particularly in Britain and Australia — from a literal reference to a raging conflagration to a metaphorical word for something that moves fast. Australians don’t use the term at all — they call them bushfires. Only in the US is it still used for a real fire.

According to the big Oxford English Dictionary, the sense of a fast-moving blaze burning out of control died out in Britain in the seventeenth century; it isn’t in the New Oxford Dictionary of English (σνίκελ: αυτό που τώρα λέγεται ODE) in that sense at all. The original meaning — sometime in the twelfth century — was of a fire that had been caused by lightning (and so a doubly inappropriate word for these current Australian outbreaks, many of which are alleged to have been deliberately started). It was a fire that occurred in the wild, the uncultivated countryside, not necessarily one that was untameable (though the association of ideas between these two senses must have been hugely powerful).

Somehow this idea got tangled up in people’s mind with the Jack-o’-lantern, will-o’-the-wisp, friar’s lantern, or ignis fatuus, that mysterious, cool, dancing flame of burning methane sometimes to be seen in marshes. The word wildfire comes from the old Germanic wildfeuer for that phenomenon (modern German prefers Irrlicht or Trugbild).

In the thirteenth century, the same word became the usual English way to speak about the invention otherwise called Greek fire — a mixture of inflammable substances that was a precursor to napalm — easy to light but as hard to put out as any bushfire. The link with lightning resurfaced at the end of the seventeenth century, when the word was used for that curious phenomenon in which lightning flashes but no thunder is heard, better known as summer lightning.

But our current sense of wildfire, for something that moves as fast as a fire in dry country, seems to be owed to Shakespeare, who used it in The Rape of Lucrece for an enchanting storyteller “Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory / Of rich-built Ilion”. So far had the figurative sense taken over that by the end of the seventeenth century William Dampier could write in his New Voyage round the World of 1699, quite without any punning intention, that they set fire to some grassland, which burnt “like Wild-fire”. How else?

Ας δούμε κομμάτια και από το πιο ενημερωμένο κείμενο της Wikipedia:

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire that occurs in the countryside or wilderness area. Reflecting the type of vegetation or fuel, other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, vegetation fire, and wildland fire may be used to describe the same phenomenon. A wildfire differs from other fires by its extensive size, the speed at which it can spread out from its original source, its ability to change direction unexpectedly and to jump gaps, such as roads, rivers and fire breaks. […]

The name wildfire was once a synonym for Greek fire as well as a word for any furious or destructive conflagration. Wildfires differ from other fires in that they take place outdoors in areas of grassland, woodlands, bushland, scrubland, peatland, and other woody materials that act as a source of fuel, or combustible material. Buildings are not usually involved unless the fire spreads to adjacent communities and threatens these structures.

Σε άλλες γλώσσες η σελίδα της Wikipedia παραπέμπει σε δασική φωτιά (forest fire):
Feu de forêt
Incendio forestal

Σε άλλα κείμενα οι wildfires περιλαμβάνουν τις forest fires (είναι υπερώνυμο). Εκεί ίσως θα πρέπει να γράψουμε για αγροτοδασικές πυρκαγιές / φωτιές, πυρκαγιές υπαίθρου ή και πυρκαγιές στο φυσικό περιβάλλον. (Αν γράφατε στο Βήμα, τότε και «πυρκαϊές».)

Αν θέλουμε να δώσουμε έμφαση στο «rapidly spreading» (που περιλαμβάνουν όλοι οι ορισμοί των λεξικών), τότε ανεξέλεγκτη φωτιά / πυρκαγιά.

Δεν λείπουν και κάποιοι που γράφουν «άγρια φωτιά». Φαντάζομαι ότι, προς το παρόν, αυτό το θεωρούμε αγγλισμό;

Κανένας δεν μιλάει πια για τη φυσική προέλευση των πυρκαγιών, μην τον πάρουν στο ψιλό.
 
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