scholarly journals Empirical Research on Climate Warming Risks for Forest Fires: A Case Study of Grade I Forest Fire Danger Zone, Sichuan Province, China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7773
Author(s):  
San Wang ◽  
Hongli Li ◽  
Shukui Niu

The Sichuan province is a key area for forest and grassland fire prevention in China. Forest resources contribute significantly not only to the biological gene pool in the mid latitudes but also in reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases and slowing down global warming. To study and forecast forest fire change trends in a grade I forest fire danger zone in the Sichuan province under climate change, the dynamic impacts of meteorological factors on forest fires in different climatic regions were explored and a model between them was established by using an integral regression in this study. The results showed that the dominant factor behind the area burned was wind speed in three climatic regions, particularly in Ganzi and A’ba with plateau climates. In Ganzi and A’ba, precipitation was mainly responsible for controlling the number of forest fires while it was mainly affected by temperature in Panzhihua and Liangshan with semi-humid subtropical mountain climates. Moreover, the synergistic effect of temperature, precipitation and wind speed was responsible in basin mid-subtropical humid climates with Chengdu as the center and the influence of temperature was slightly higher. The differential forest fire response to meteorological factors was observed in different climatic regions but there was some regularity. The influence of monthly precipitation in the autumn on the area burned in each climatic region was more significant than in other seasons, which verified the hypothesis of a precipitation lag effect. Climate warming and the combined impact of warming effects may lead to more frequent and severe fires.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1477-1490 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Venäläinen ◽  
N. Korhonen ◽  
O. Hyvärinen ◽  
N. Koutsias ◽  
F. Xystrakis ◽  
...  

Abstract. Understanding how fire weather danger indices changed in the past and how such changes affected forest fire activity is important in a changing climate. We used the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), calculated from two reanalysis data sets, ERA-40 and ERA Interim, to examine the temporal variation of forest fire danger in Europe in 1960–2012. Additionally, we used national forest fire statistics from Greece, Spain and Finland to examine the relationship between fire danger and fires. There is no obvious trend in fire danger for the time period covered by ERA-40 (1960–1999), whereas for the period 1980–2012 covered by ERA Interim, the mean FWI shows an increasing trend for southern and eastern Europe which is significant at the 99% confidence level. The cross correlations calculated at the national level in Greece, Spain and Finland between total area burned and mean FWI of the current season is of the order of 0.6, demonstrating the extent to which the current fire-season weather can explain forest fires. To summarize, fire risk is multifaceted, and while climate is a major determinant, other factors can contribute to it, either positively or negatively.


2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-23
Author(s):  
Josiah Marquis ◽  
Meriem Benlamri ◽  
Elizabeth Dent ◽  
Tharmitha Suyeshkumar

Almost half of the Canadian landscape is made up of forests, but the amount of forest surface area burned every year has been growing steadily since 1960.1 This can be problematic due to the effects that forest fires have not only on the local environment but also on the globe as a whole. A forest fire or vegetation fire is defined as any open fire of vegetation such as savannah, forest, agriculture, or peat that is initiated by humans or nature.2 Vegetation fires contribute heavily to air pollution and climate change and are in turn exacerbated by them as well. Air pollution increases due to emissions from these fires, which contain 90-95% carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as well as methane and other volatile compounds.2 Emissions from forest fires also contribute to global greenhouse gases and aerosol particles (biomass burning organic aerosols),2 leading to indirect and direct consequences to human health. In contrast to biomass burning for household heating and cooking, catastrophic events of forest fires and sweeping grassland fires result in unique exposures and health consequences. In this case report, the relationship between environmental hazardous air pollutants and the potential physiological and psychological health effects associated with the forest fire that affected Fort McMurray, AB in May 2016 are considered.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 2591-2601 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. Mäkelä ◽  
M. Laapas ◽  
A. Venäläinen

Abstract. Climate variation and change influence several ecosystem components including forest fires. To examine long-term temporal variations of forest fire danger, a fire danger day (FDD) model was developed. Using mean temperature and total precipitation of the Finnish wildfire season (June–August), the model describes the climatological preconditions of fire occurrence and gives the number of fire danger days during the same time period. The performance of the model varied between different regions in Finland being best in south and west. In the study period 1908–2011, the year-to-year variation of FDD was large and no significant increasing or decreasing tendencies could be found. Negative slopes of linear regression lines for FDD could be explained by the simultaneous, mostly not significant increases in precipitation. Years with the largest wildfires did not stand out from the FDD time series. This indicates that intra-seasonal variations of FDD enable occurrence of large-scale fires, despite the whole season's fire danger is on an average level. Based on available monthly climate data, it is possible to estimate the general fire conditions of a summer. However, more detailed input data about weather conditions, land use, prevailing forestry conventions and socio-economical factors would be needed to gain more specific information about a season's fire risk.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 217 ◽  
Author(s):  
ES Takle ◽  
DJ Bramer ◽  
WE Heilman ◽  
MR Thompson

We studied surface-pressure patterns corresponding to reduced precipitation, high evaporation potential, and enhanced forest-fire danger for West Virginia, which experienced extensive forest-fire damage in November 1987. From five years of daily weather maps we identified eight weather patterns that describe distinctive flow situations throughout the year. Map patterns labeled extended-high, back-of-high, and pre-high were the most frequently occurring patterns that accompany forest fires in West Virginia and the nearby four-stare region. Of these, back-of-high accounted for a disproportionately large amount of fire-related damage. Examination of evaporation acid precipitation data showed that these three patterns and high-to-the-south patterns ail led to drying conditions and all other patterns led to moistening conditions. Surface-pressure fields generated by the Canadian Climate Centre global circulation model for simulations of the present (1xCO2) climate and 2xCO2 climate were studied to determine whether forest-fire potential would change under increased atmospheric CO2. The analysis showed a tendency for increased frequency of drying in the NE US, but the results were not statistically significant.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 2101 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ahmed ◽  
Quazi Hassan ◽  
Masoud Abdollahi ◽  
Anil Gupta

Forest fires are natural disasters that create a significant risk to the communities living in the vicinity of forested landscape. To minimize the risk of forest fires for the resilience of such urban communities and forested ecosystems, we proposed a new remote sensing-based medium-term (i.e., four-day) forest fire danger forecasting system (FFDFS) based on an existing framework, and applied the system over the forested regions in the northern Alberta, Canada. Hence, we first employed moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived daily land surface temperature (Ts) and surface reflectance products along with the annual land cover to generate three four-day composite for Ts, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and normalized difference water index (NDWI) at 500 m spatial resolution for the next four days over the forest-dominant regions. Upon generating these four-day composites, we calculated the variable-specific mean values to determine variable-specific fire danger maps with two danger classes (i.e., high and low). Then, by assuming the cloud-contaminated pixels as the low fire danger areas, we combined these three danger maps to generate a four-day fire danger map with four danger classes (i.e., low, moderate, high, and very high) over our study area of interest, which was further enhanced by incorporation of a human-caused static fire danger map. Finally, the four-day scale fire danger maps were evaluated using observed/ground-based forest fire occurrences during the 2015–2017 fire seasons. The results revealed that our proposed system was able to detect about 75% of the fire events in the top two danger classes (i.e., high and very high). The system was also able to predict the 2016 Horse River wildfire, the worst fire event in Albertian and Canadian history, with about 67% agreement. The higher accuracy outputs from our proposed model indicated that it could be implemented in the operational management, which would be very useful for lessening the adverse impact of such fire events.


Author(s):  
Elena Petrovna Yankovich ◽  
Ksenia S. Yankovich

The vegetation cover is the most important factor in forest fires, because it reflects the presence of forest fuels. The study of the variability of the vegetation cover, as well as observation of its condition, allows estimating the level of fire danger of the forest quarter. The work presents a geo-information system containing a set of tools to determine the level of fire danger of the forest quarter. The system is able to predict (determine the probability) and classify forest quarters according to the level of fire danger. The assessment of forest fire danger of Tomsk forestry of Tomsk region has been carried out. Fire probability maps of forest quarters were created based on remote sensing data and ArcGIS software.


2011 ◽  
Vol 183-185 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Zhan Shu ◽  
Xue Ying Di ◽  
Hui Huang

Forest fire is one of the most important ecological factors in the forest ecosystem. The Great Xing’an Mountain region has not only the largest forest areas, but also the biggest forest fire burned area in China. By analyzing the recorded climate and forest fire data of Ta He forestry bureau from 1974 to 2004, the following results can be concluded: (1) There were 298 forest fires recorded by Ta He forestry bureau during 31 years and the burned area were 1.63 million hectares totally with 9.6 forest fires per year, unpredictable and short fire cycle as characters. (2) According to the occurrence time of forest fires, the Julian date concentrated between 102~181 and 240~293, corresponding April 12th to June 30th and August 28th to October 20th, which were spring and autumn fire prevention periods. Major fires mainly occurred in spring of 1974~1982, 1986~1987, 1993, and 1998~2002. The major fires cycle were 4 to 5 years. (3) The related indices of temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, and wind speed recorded in June in Ta He forestry bureau were 0.3929, 0.5274, 0.6136 and 0.1679. Temperature, relative humidity and rainfall factors in June had obvious linear relationships to forest fires, while the relationship between wind speed and forest fires is unobvious.


Forecasting ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-715
Author(s):  
Nikolay Baranovskiy

Forest fires from lightnings create a tense situation in various regions of states with forested areas. It is noted that in mountainous areas this is especially important in view of the geophysical processes of lightning activity. The aim of the study is to develop a deterministic-probabilistic approach to predicting forest fire danger due to lightning activity in mountainous regions. To develop a mathematical model, the main provisions of the theory of probability and mathematical statistics, as well as the general theory of heat transfer, were used. The scientific novelty of the research is due to the complex use of probabilistic criteria and deterministic mathematical models of tree ignition by a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge. The paper presents probabilistic criteria for predicting forest fire danger, taking into account the lightning activity, meteorological data, and forest growth conditions, as well as deterministic mathematical models of ignition of deciduous and coniferous trees by electric current of a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge. The work uses synthetic data on the discharge parameters and characteristics of the forest-covered area, which correspond to the forest fire situation in the Republic of Altay and the Republic of Buryatia (Russian Federation). The dependences of the probability for occurrence of forest fires on various parameters have been obtained.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis Chong ◽  
Emily Huang ◽  
Leon Chen

This study aimed to determine the effects of climate change on forest fire trends in Canada by measuring correlations between weather conditions, and the frequencies and sizes of forest fires. Upon identifying the correlations, a model was created to understand future forest fire trends in order to prevent the increasing occurrences of forest fires, and to devise solutions to reduce their damages. The data obtained from the Canadian National Fire Database was modeled with a linear regression to predict and correlate weather conditions with future forest fire trends. It was concluded that temperature and wind speed correlated positively with forest fire frequency and size, while precipitation presented a negative correlation. To reduce the harmful effects of forest fires, cloud seeding can be used to create more precipitation, and wind farms can be built to lower wind speeds and attract lightning. However, more research and stricter policies directly targeting climate change is a necessity when it comes to decreasing forest fire trends and improving longterm security.


Author(s):  
Baranovskiy Nikolay ◽  
Krechetova Svetlana ◽  
Belikova Marina ◽  
Perelygin Anton

<p>Storm activity is the main reason for forest fires to occur in remote forested territories. The current article presents the results for cluster analysis of WWLLN data on lightning discharges. It provides the description for clusterization algorithms of lightning discharges over the controlled territory. Research area is Timiryazevskiy forestry of the Tomsk region (Siberia, Russia). We analyzed the applicability of cluster analysis results for monitoring of the forest fire danger caused by storm activity. As a result of the conducted research, we established that the following characteristics of storm activity can be included in deterministic-probabilistic criterion to assess the forest fire danger. The article gives the recommendations how to create new generation information-computer and geoinformation systems for monitoring of the forest fire danger caused by storm activity in the controlled forested territory.</p>


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