北宸老师的经验之谈，翻译《经济学人》可以快速提高中文写作水平。我抱着尝试的态度开始了练习。
Forewarned is forearmed
有备无患
Software can model how a wildfire will spread —— and how to stop it happening
山火会怎么扩散和怎么防止其发生，现在计算机软件可以通过建立模型来预测。
LEST anyone doubt the speed with which a brush fire can strike,consider how rapidly flames engulfed Mati,a seaside resort near Athens, on July 23rd.Less than 90 minutes after fire was reported,flames had reached densely populated areas. Hordes of people fled into the sea, the only refuge,to escape. At least 91 were killed.
在7月23日，几乎没有人相信一个小小的灌木丛引发的火灾会迅速蔓延开来，火焰快速吞没了一个靠近雅典的海滨浴场——马蒂亚。火情上报后不到90分钟的时间里，大火已经烧到了人口密集的居住区。人们成群结队地逃向仅剩的避难场所，大海。至少91人死亡。
That toll could have been avoided,says Gavriil Xanthopoulos,a wildfire expert at Greece's Ministry of Rural Development and Food,if proper had been made in advance of fire-simulation software. Fed with data on the area's vegetation, building materials, paved surfaces, paths to the sea and weather patterns, such software would have suggested, he says, those places where trees and brush should have been removed,roads widened and evacuation paths built-not to mention how zoning laws could have been better devised in the face of fire risk.
希腊共和国农村发展和食品部长加弗瑞塞普洛斯说：“如果提前用火灾模型软件做好了准备，这次的伤亡是可以避免的。”他接着说，“借助某个区域的植物、建筑材料、地表、到海边的路径和天气模型的数据，这些软件可以形成建议，哪些地方的树和灌木需要移除，哪些路需要加宽，哪些地方需要建避难场所。更不必说还能根据火灾风险设计更合理的区域规划法规。”
Greece, Dr Xanthopoulos laments, has been slow to adopt such software. Other are not so dilatory. America's Forest Service, for instance, uses a model developed by Esri, a geographic-information firm in Redlands, California, to assess fire risk. This model feeds on data on the distribution and types of trees,bushes and other vegetable ground cover, and on construction materials used in an area.
塞普洛斯先生哀叹，希腊还是迟迟没有采用这些软件。别的国家可没这么缓慢。例如，美国林业局正在使用一套由加利福尼亚州雷德兰兹市的一家地理信息公司Esri开发的模型。模型中的数据是取至树、灌木、其他地表植物的类型和分布，以及该地区使用的建筑材料。
