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[Hertzyscowicz]

Turn temperature on?

It wouldn't work anyway - the grass would regrow.

I suppose it could be kept from happening by assigning a lot of soldiers to patrol a route zig-zagging across the whole map. That, or pave the whole thing with obsidian.

[Valkyrie]

Using bituminous coal or lignite seems to be the most reliable way to get grass fires to start, but even then it's iffy if you're doing it with active magma.  As far as I can tell, the burning lignite/bituminous needs to get to the grass before the magma does, since magma'd tiles don't seem to be able to ignite neighbors.

Also, might need to be careful about what contaminants are on the grass that you're trying to burn.  While fire wonderfully seems to ignore contaminants, magma does not.  Since that piece of clothing with 5 different types of blood on it can survive in magma for quite a long time, long after the un-bloodied copper has melted to nothingness, the grass might be similar in terms of igniting vs simply dying.  In my own tests with igniting stuff, most of the grass was heavily contaminated (the reason I was pouring magma over the outdoors in the first place), which might have been why burning bituminous coal was required to get the grass on fire.

[ledgekindred]

Turn temperature on?

It wouldn't work anyway - the grass would regrow.

I suppose it could be kept from happening by assigning a lot of soldiers to patrol a route zig-zagging across the whole map. That, or pave the whole thing with obsidian.

alt.pave.the.earth - ahhh the good old days.

I've also had no problem starting brush fires with magma.  I've been in hot climates when the grass is dry though.  And it all grew back within a couple seasons anyway.

If you really want to create a wasteland, pave it like Hertzycowicz said.

[NightmareBros]

Your not aplying enough magma to the world.
Pump out more, onto elephents if you are going for points in style.

[peterix]

Your not aplying enough magma to the world.
Pump out more, onto elephents if you are going for points in style.

Now that's an interesting idea. Maybe pour magma on elephants that will then ignite the grass

[RemusShepherd]

Pour magma on a log, designate the log for dumping in the grass, lock the doors so your sacrificial hauler doesn't spread the Burning Sickness through the rest of the fort.

Just watch out for this:

Urist McHauler picks up the burning log.
Urist McHauler, now feeling warm, decides to get a drink.
Urist McHauler drops burning log in booze stockpile.

As for whether magma ignites fires or not, I'm wondering whether it's a question of what's being burned.  We know that magma will not burn a tree in an adjacent square -- that's why trees can block magma pipes underground.  Maybe magma burns grass in its own square, but that doesn't spread the fire to adjacent squares.  All the spreading wildfires players have seen are caused by magma igniting trees/logs/lignite, which then spreads fire to adjacent terrain.

That would explain why on a map with grass but no trees, magma alone won't do the job.

[nbonaparte]

I'm confused. Back in 40d, I did away with some goblins by hacking in a tile of magma on the surface. It was a sparse forested area. the whole place burned.

[Ieb]

Like said, magma itself doesn't ignite fires. But throw magma on something ON grass, be it a discarded sock or a whole goblin and they can set everything on fire.

If you don't want to sacrifice your peasants(hey maybe you LIKE peasants), you could just make a bridge-tosser that has the igniting piece of coal on it. Dump coal on bridge, flip lever, magma falls on the coal and it's set on fire, flip another lever, bridge tosses the burning coal down and onto grass.

I'm pretty sure that works. Haven't exactly tested whether being airborne magically puts out fire.

[Zebra2]

Like said, magma itself doesn't ignite fires. But throw magma on something ON grass, be it a discarded sock or a whole goblin and they can set everything on fire.

If you don't want to sacrifice your peasants(hey maybe you LIKE peasants), you could just make a bridge-tosser that has the igniting piece of coal on it. Dump coal on bridge, flip lever, magma falls on the coal and it's set on fire, flip another lever, bridge tosses the burning coal down and onto grass.

I'm pretty sure that works. Haven't exactly tested whether being airborne magically puts out fire.

A... flaming bridgeapult? Why has no one thought of this?!

But yeah, as if it hasn't been said enough already, magma itself will not initiate a wildfire. You need some sort of middleman.

[JAFANZ]

A... flaming bridgeapult? Why has no one thought of this?

For some reason "Flaming Bridgeapult" makes me think the Bridge should be made of Lignite or Coal...

[ledgekindred]

All the spreading wildfires players have seen are caused by magma igniting trees/logs/lignite, which then spreads fire to adjacent terrain.

In my case it was definitely grass.  I was playing on a "Hot" embark with few trees.  I had opened a floodgate on my outside refuse dump to burn it all away and as expected a little bit overflowed the dumping channel.  It burned down nearly the whole "front yard" area inside the walls I had built around the fort entrance.    I suppose it could have been burning refuse that lit the grass on fire.  All I know is, I let some magma out onto the refuse dump and next thing I know the front yard is on fire.  It looked pretty neat too, with little sparkly like "campire" icons moving around, looking a bit like a Cellular Automata. 

[Valkyrie]

I'd heavily suspect the refuse.  In 40d, corpses seemed to ignite much more easily than in 31.x - there, almost every magma death that wasn't insta-bones was a death-by-fire, whereas in 31.x death-by-fire is extremely rare for me (usually the die-from-melting or die-from-melting-bloodloss). In 31.x though, most of the butcher products (hair, scales, etc) and remains seem reasonably flamable, depending on the creature they came from.  Crundle scales seem particular fond of catching fire, but they also don't last very long once they do ><  Still, it doesn't have to last long to start a fire, it just has to get lucky with the ignition, pushing, and contaminants.  My stuff is usually far too coated in contaminants to catch fire on the magma's leading edge, but in a cleaner fort it certainly sounds feasible.