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"...brush fires lately blamed on target shooting..." No proof either? Any place would have to be extremely dry and excessively unlucky for sparks from a bullet hitting a rock to cause a fire. Unless there are shooters using incendiaries.
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I spoke with a forest ranger at a cleanup event this year about this and he said the dept puts out several fires each year at the popular public land shooting locations we have here. Yes it does take very dry conditions but there is more to it than just sparks from a rock.
its well worth the quick read, here is an official study done on the subject:
http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_rp104.pdf
I’m no expert but my theory is hundreds of rounds shot at one target puts them all in the ground impacting each other and objects like rocks in a very small spot. Solid copper and bullets with steel components have higher risk... The better the shot you are the more concentrated the heat build up over time in one spot so its not just a possible spark but the bullet itself can reach over 1400 degrees from the impact with other hard objects. The bullets can smolder unnoticed for any amount of time before ignition long after the target shooter has gone home perhaps the reason many target shooters don’t agree that target shooting can cause fires.
here is an example of one such fire back in 2014:
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamasc...tarted_by.html