Frequency of Fires in the Miombo Woodland of the Gilé National Park. Province of Zambezia

Fires occur in a widespread manner in various types of vegetation cover at national level, and are often associated with human hunting, grazing and above all the practice of itinerant agriculture. With the purpose to propose the map of frequency of fire, remote sensing data was collected from 2014 to 2018, using the Moderate Resolution Image Spectroradiometer (MODIS) of the burned area (MCD64A1), which allowed the construction of the map of frequency and intensity of fires, associated with data collected in 59 plots on field. It was observed that the Gilé National Park (PNAG) records an average fire frequency of 0.38 times/year and the return interval of 5.38 years, and an average fire return interval of 2.62 years. During the study period, the PNAG burned 92.8% of the area, which means that on average for each year it burned about 18.56% of its area, there are no significant differences in relation to the area burned per year (p> 0.942037) but there are significant differences in relation to the area burned per month (p <1.24e-07).

Assessing costs of Indonesian fires and the benefits of restoring peatland

Deforestation and drainage has made Indonesian peatlands susceptible to burning. Large fires occur regularly, destroying agricultural crops and forest, emitting large amounts of CO2 and air pollutants, resulting in adverse health effects. In order to reduce fire, the Indonesian government has committed to restore 2.49 Mha of degraded peatland, with an estimated cost of US$3.2-7 billion. Here we combine fire emissions and land cover data to estimate the 2015 fires, the largest in recent years, resulted in economic losses totalling US$28 billion, whilst the six largest fire events between 2004 and 2015 caused a total of US$93.9 billion in economic losses. We estimate that if restoration had already been completed, the area burned in 2015 would have been reduced by 6%, reducing CO2 emissions by 18%, and PM2.5 emissions by 24%, preventing 12,000 premature mortalities. Peatland restoration could have resulted in economic savings of US$8.4 billion for 2004–2015, making it a cost-effective strategy for reducing the impacts of peatland fires to the environment, climate and human health.

Brazil’s Cattle Sector Played Large Role in Fires During 2020 Moratorium

In response to global concern about recent fires, Brazil placed a 120-day moratorium on burning in the Amazon in 2020. We assessed how the cattle sector was linked to these fires by estimating the number of cattle properties involved with fires despite the moratorium, and their roles in cattle supply chains. We examined the land cover prior to the fire to identify instances of fires associated with recent deforestation. Our results show that the cattle sector contributed disproportionately to the fires in 2020, in terms of both the number of properties involved and the area burned. Improvements in both supply chain policies and overall environmental governance in the Amazon are likely needed to avoid recurrences of the catastrophic scale of fires during the 2020 season.

EFICIÊNCIA DE COMBATE AOS INCÊNDIOS FLORESTAIS EM UNIDADES DE CONSERVAÇÃO BRASILEIRAS

A precariedade dos planos de combate aos incêndios florestais, torna o fogo a principal ameaça às Unidades de Conservação. Os Registros de Ocorrência de Incêndios (ROIs) são estratégias para aumentar a eficiência no enfrentamento aos incêndios. Assim, com a presente pesquisa objetivou-se analisar a eficiência de combate aos incêndios florestais em Unidades de Conservação brasileiras. Foram utilizados os ROIs do Sistema Nacional de Informações sobre Fogo referentes ao intervalo de 2010 a 2020. Foram avaliados o número de ROIs completos e incompletos, tipos de detecção, quantidade de área queimada, tempo de detecção, de ataque e de combate. Os resultados evidenciaram que apenas 52,33% dos ROIs estavam completos e que 2019 foi o ano com mais ROIs completos. Os pontos de observação e a ronda foram os principais métodos de detecção. As unidades de conservação brasileiras sofreram com a destruição de 31.918.617,41 hectares no período analisado, que significa índice de severidade extremo. Conclui-se que as unidades de conservação brasileiras apresentam baixa eficiência de combate aos incêndios florestais, principalmente de ataque inicial e combate, sendo necessário melhorar a eficiência da detecção e combate, infraestrutura, realizar treinamentos e conscientização sobre a importância dos ROIs. Palavras-chave: proteção florestal; registro de ocorrência de incêndios; áreas protegidas. Firefighting efficiency in Brazilian Protected Areas ABSTRACT: The precariousness of plans to combat forest fires, makes fire the main threat to Protected areas. Fire Occurrence Records (ROIs) are strategies to increase efficiency in fighting fires. Thus, we aimed analyze the efficiency of fighting forest fires in Brazilian Protected Areas. ROIs by National Fire Information System for the period 2010 to 2020 were used. The number of complete and incomplete ROIs, types of detection, amount of area burned, time of detection, attack and combat were evaluated. The results showed that only 52.33% of the ROIs were complete and that 2019 was the year with the most complete ROIs. Observation points and patrol were the main detection methods. Brazilian protected areas suffered from the destruction of 31,918,617.41 hectares in the analyzed period, which means an extreme severity index. It is concluded that Brazilian protected areas have low efficiency in combating forest fires, mainly in initial attack and combat, and it is necessary to improve the efficiency of detection and combat, infrastructure, conduct training and awareness about the importance of ROIs. Keywords: forest protection; record of fire occurrences; protected areas.

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

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.

Ignitions explain more than temperature or precipitation in driving Santa Ana wind fires

Autumn and winter Santa Ana wind (SAW)–driven wildfires play a substantial role in area burned and societal losses in southern California. Temperature during the event and antecedent precipitation in the week or month prior play a minor role in determining area burned. Burning is dependent on wind intensity and number of human-ignited fires. Over 75% of all SAW events generate no fires; rather, fires during a SAW event are dependent on a fire being ignited. Models explained 40 to 50% of area burned, with number of ignitions being the strongest variable. One hundred percent of SAW fires were human caused, and in the past decade, powerline failures have been the dominant cause. Future fire losses can be reduced by greater emphasis on maintenance of utility lines and attention to planning urban growth in ways that reduce the potential for powerline ignitions.

Where there's smoke, there's fuel: predicting Great Basin rangeland wildfire

Wildfires are a growing management concern in western US rangelands, where invasive annual grasses have altered fire regimes and contributed to an increased incidence of catastrophic large wildfires. Fire activity in arid, non-forested regions is thought to be largely controlled by interannual variation in fuel amount, which in turn is controlled by antecedent weather. Thus, long-range forecasting of fire activity in rangelands should be feasible given annual estimates of fuel quantity. Using a 32 yr time series of spatial data, we employ machine learning algorithms to predict the relative probability of large (>400 ha) wildfire in the Great Basin based on fine-scale annual and 16-day estimates of cover and production of vegetation functional groups, weather, and multitemporal scale drought indices. We evaluate the predictive utility of these models with a leave-one-year-out cross-validation, building spatial forecasts of fire probability for each year that we compare against actual maps of large wildfires. Herbaceous vegetation aboveground biomass production, bare ground cover, and long-term drought indices were the most important predictors of fire probability. Across 32 fire seasons, >80% of the area burned in large wildfires coincided with predicted fire probabilities ≥0.5. At the scale of the Great Basin, several metrics of fire season severity were moderately to strongly correlated with average fire probability, including total area burned in large wildfires, number of large wildfires, and average and maximum fire size. Our findings show that recent years of exceptional fire activity in the Great Basin were predictable based on antecedent weather and biomass of fine fuels, and reveal a significant increasing trend in fire probability over the last three decades driven by widespread changes in fine fuel characteristics.

Broad-Scale Surface and Atmospheric Conditions during Large Fires in South-Central Chile

The unprecedented size of the 2017 wildfires that burned nearly 600,000 hectares of central Chile highlight a need to better understand the climatic conditions under which large fires develop. Here we evaluate synoptic atmospheric conditions at the surface and free troposphere associated with anomalously high (active) versus low (inactive) months of area burned in south-central Chile (ca. 32–41° S) from the Chilean Forest Service (CONAF) record of area burned from 1984–2018. Active fire months are correlated with warm surface temperatures, dry conditions, and the presence of a circumpolar assemblage of high-pressure systems located ca. 40°–60° S. Additionally, warm surface temperatures associated with active fire months are linked to reduced strength of cool, onshore westerly winds and an increase in warm, downslope Andean Cordillera easterly winds. Episodic warm downslope winds and easterly wind anomalies superimposed on long-term warming and drying trends will continue to create conditions that promote large fires in south-central Chile. Identifying the mechanisms responsible for easterly wind anomalies and determining whether this trend is strengthening due to synoptic-scale climatic changes such as the poleward shift in Southern Hemisphere westerly winds will be critical for anticipating future large fire activity in south-central Chile.