The Science of Extremes: Fire

Wildfires which include forest, bush and desert fires are both made worse by climate change and are making climate change worse. Old forests tend to be dry forests and are more likely to burn. They have also accumulated a large amount of carbon throughout their long lives and will lose it to the atmosphere. Fires release large quantities of greenhouse gases, second only to volcanic eruptions among natural sources.

Fires may have different causes and are expected to have different effects in a warming world. Asia According to fire data from Northern China between 1991 and 2006, grassland fire outbreaks have increased gradually, along with economic development and population growth. This has become an economic issue for farmers who raise livestock (Liu et al., 2006). A combination of less rain, higher temperatures, and more land use in Asia has caused an increase in fires over the past 20 years (IPCC 2007 -- see Section 10.2.4.4). Draining fields contributes to drying peatland, which is more likely to catch fire (see here). The peatland in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea alone contains as much carbon as nine years of contemporary global fossil fuel (Van der Werf et al., 2008).

Europe Forest fire danger (length of season, frequency, and severity) is very likely to increase in the Mediterranean, Eastern, and Northern Europe. Particularly in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, fires have increased. The pine forests of Central Europe are predicted to dry and become a fire hazard. (all from Moriondo et al 2006)

South America A record season of high altitude fires occurred in the Northern Andes in early 2008.

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Changes in water vapor circulation patterns and the disappearance of mountain lakes may have contributed. Droughts in the Amazon basin are strongly linked to enormous increases in forest fires (Cochrane and Laurance, 2008).

North America

There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify this century in central North America (Extreme Events report summary), especially in the southwest United States and northwest Mexico. In the Western US and Alaska, wildfires have increased in the late 20 th Ccentury and are tied to higher temperatures and earlier snowmelt (Westerling et al., 2006). In 2003, fires in British Columbia destroyed over 200 homes, and forced the evacuation of 30,000 people. Satellite data collected continuously since the 1970s has suggested anthropogenic warming has contributed to an increase in Canadian wildfires (Gillett et al., 2004).

Australia/New Zealand In southeast Australia, the frequency of very high and extreme fire danger days is likely to rise 1570% by 2050 (Hennessy et al., 2004). In New Zealand, the number of days with very high and extreme fire danger is likely to increase by 1050%. The 2003 Canberra wildfires caused US $320 million damage, destroyed 500 homes, killed 4 people, and injured hundreds. The 2009 Victoria wildfires killed 173 and were the result of record heat and a 35-day period with no rain immediately before the fires, transforming areas normally seen as low to medium wildfire risk into very dry high risk locations. (CSIRO, 2011)

Deforestation makes other forests drier and more prone to fire. (Cochrane, 2003) Widespread deforestation removes trees that normally would release water back into the atmosphere through their leaves. This lowers humidity in the atmosphere and leads to drier conditions. Smoke from burning forests can release airborne chemicals called aerosols that decrease rainfall, leading to more dry forests and more susceptibility to fires.

When trees arent available to take up water from the ground, it can run off quickly and cause erosion and flooding.

Forest protection and reforestation can help. But small trees arent as powerful at reclaiming and storing carbon. In Panama, 60% of the total biomass is contained in 1% of the largest trees (Chave et al., 2003).

Slowing deforestation is probably a better solution than replanting trees. More research is needed into ways to predict and fight fires, and what materials are combustible.

Fires above a certain magnitude are difficult to combat. When a forest fire has more than 4000 watts of energy per meter, attacking it directly is useless, even from the air. The 2009 fires in Victoria, Australia had 80,000 watts per meter of energy. A task force recommended prevention, rather than any specific action once a fire had started. This included regulating and mapping powerlines and other sources of sparks that could start a fire, and mapping which wildlife and plants serve as fuel in order to better protect these areas from sparks. (More here)

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