The Role of El Nino Variability and Peatland in Burnt Area and Emitted Carbon in Forest Fire Modeling

This study was conducted to model fire occurrence within El Nino variability and peatland distribution. These climate and geographical factors have a significant impact on forest fires in tropical areas such as Indonesia. The re-analysis dataset from ECMWF was observed with respect to climate characteristics in Indonesian El Nino events. The INFERNO (INteractive Fire and Emission algoRithm for Natural envirOnments) was utilized to simulate fires over Borneo Island due to its capability to simulate large-scale fires with simplified parameters. There were some adjustments in this INFERNO model, especially for peat fire as peatland has a significant impact on fires. The first was the contribution of climate to the peat fire which is represented by long-term precipitation. The second was the combustion completeness of peat fire occurrence that is mainly affected by human-induced peat drainage. The result of the model shows that El Nino variability mainly affected peat fires but was unable to well simulate the above-ground fire. It increased the burnt area during strong El Nino but overestimated the fires during low/no El Nino season due to lack of peat fire ignition in the calculation. Moreover, as the model did not provide peat drainage simulation, it underestimated the carbon emission. This model has shown promising results by addressing key features in limited input data, but improving some simulations is necessary for regulating weak/no El Nino conditions and carbon combustion of peat fire.

Remote Sensing Mapping of Peat-Fire-Burnt Areas: Identification among Other Wildfires

Peat fires differ from other wildfires in their duration, carbon losses, emissions of greenhouse gases and highly hazardous products of combustion and other environmental impacts. Moreover, it is difficult to identify peat fires using ground-based methods and to distinguish peat fires from forest fires and other wildfires by remote sensing. Using the example of catastrophic fires in July–August 2010 in the Moscow region (the center of European Russia), in the present study, we consider the results of peat-fire detection using Terra/Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) hotspots, peat maps, and analysis of land cover pre- and post-fire according to Landsat-5 TM data. A comparison of specific (for detecting fires) and non-specific vegetation indices showed the difference index ΔNDMI (pre- and post-fire normalized difference moisture Index) to be the most effective for detecting burns in peatlands according to Landsat-5 TM data. In combination with classification (both unsupervised and supervised), this index offered 95% accuracy (by ground verification) in identifying burnt areas in peatlands. At the same time, most peatland fires were not detected by Terra/Aqua MODIS data. A comparison of peatland and other wildfires showed the clearest differences between them in terms of duration and the maximum value of the fire radiation power index. The present results may help in identifying peat (underground) fires and their burnt areas, as well as accounting for carbon losses and greenhouse gas emissions.

Android mobile application for wildfire reporting and monitoring

Peat fires cause major environmental problems in Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia and threaten human health and effect the social-economic sector. The lack of peat fire detection systems is one factor that causing these reoccurring fires. Therefore, in this study, we develop an Android mobile platform application and a web-based application to support the citizen-volunteers who want to contribute wildfires reports, and the decision-makers who wish to collect, visualize, and evaluate these wildfires reports. In this paper, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and a global position system (GPS) sensor from a smartphone’s camera, is a useful tool to show the potential fire and smoke’s close-range location. The exchangeable image (EXIF) file image and GPS metadata captured by a mobile phone can store and supply raw observation to our devices and sent it to the data center through global internet communication. This work’s results are the proposed application easy-to-use to monitoring potential peat fire by location and data activity. This paper focuses on developing an application for the mobile platform for peat fire reporting and a web-based application to collect peat fire location for decision-makers. Our main objective is to detect the potential and spread of fire in peatlands as early as possible by utilizing community reports using smartphones.

Institutional fragmentation of peat fire management in Indonesia: a knowledge management perspective

The importance of intersectoral collaboration in policy implementation has been widely accepted. Concepts of intersectoral collaboration and policy coordination are theoretically appealing; however, it is challenging to implement in practice, including in forest fire management. This paper aims to map the institutions on forest fire management and analyze the rationality in using knowledge in their duties and authorities. Using stakeholder mapping combined with the Concern-Knowledge-Action approach, this study is conducted at the national level in Indonesia, and takes two sub-national levels, South Sumatera and Central Kalimantan, as the case study. There are many institutions involved in fire management in all governance levels, including at the provincial-district level, as well as at the sub-district-village level, but the institutional fragmentation in peat fire management is still found. In managing fire in South Sumatera and Central Kalimantan, it is not handled by a specific institution having the most influential and important positions. They have different authorities but the same potential power to prevent and combat fire. A complex interconnection among them indicates the need for effective institution integration. Less connectivity among the knowledge pool is also found, especially between private – community, NGO – academia, and government – community. Finally, knowledge improvement on fire prevention method especially in defining a community livelihood offset, as well as the ex-post fire management (measuring the level of fire impact and its recovery methods) is needed to fill the gap of knowledge. A stakeholder Forum is one of the options to improve intersectoral coordination in managing forest fire in peatland and enhance the effectiveness of knowledge sharing. At community level, conducting informal discussion and capacity-building programs would be feasible options for better coordination and improving knowledge.

EFFECT OF WATER CONTENT AND SOIL IMPROVEMENT (HYDROGEL) ON PEAT FIRE SUPPRESSION

Forest and land fires are Indonesia's biggest problem which has continued from 2014 to the present. The number of activities to find the best solution in fire is something that has been done until now. Various methods, both preventive and repressive, have been implemented to prevent forest and land fires from occurring. This research aims to be a sureextinguishing gel, namely hydrogel, which can be used in efforts to extinguish forest and land fires. Extinguishing forest and land fires using hydrogel is a new method that is expected to prevent forest and land fire zones from spreading. This research shows that the tendency of decreasing the average water content of peat due to the drying process based on different intervals of oven time, namely the lowest yield ranged from 61.25% to the highest with a water content of 109.57%.

Assessing Wood and Soil Carbon Losses from a Forest-Peat Fire in the Boreo-Nemoral Zone

Forest-peat fires are notable for their difficulty in estimating carbon losses. Combined carbon losses from tree biomass and peat soil were estimated at an 8 ha forest-peat fire in the Moscow region after catastrophic fires in 2010. The loss of tree biomass carbon was assessed by reconstructing forest stand structure using the classification of pre-fire high-resolution satellite imagery and after-fire ground survey of the same forest classes in adjacent areas. Soil carbon loss was assessed by using the root collars of stumps to reconstruct the pre-fire soil surface and interpolating the peat characteristics of adjacent non-burned areas. The mean (median) depth of peat losses across the burned area was 15 ± 8 (14) cm, varying from 13 ± 5 (11) to 20 ± 9 (19). Loss of soil carbon was 9.22 ± 3.75–11.0 ± 4.96 (mean) and 8.0–11.0 kg m−2 (median); values exceeding 100 tC ha−1 have also been found in other studies. The estimated soil carbon loss for the entire burned area, 98 (mean) and 92 (median) tC ha−1, significantly exceeds the carbon loss from live (tree) biomass, which averaged 58.8 tC ha−1. The loss of carbon in the forest-peat fire thus equals the release of nearly 400 (soil) and, including the biomass, almost 650 tCO2 ha−1 into the atmosphere, which illustrates the underestimated impact of boreal forest-peat fires on atmospheric gas concentrations and climate.