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The Environment |
Some Topics
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Forest FiresDry forests are areas of high risk that catch fire and cause major economic costs, atmospheric air pollution and loss of life. Animals and humans are vulnerable. Abatzoglou and Williams Stated:” Increased forest fire activity across the western United States ( and Canada) in recent decades has contributed to widespread forest mortality, carbon emissions, periods of degraded air quality, and substantial fire suppression expenditures. Although numerous factors aided the recent rise in fire activity, observed warming and drying have significantly increased fire-season fuel aridity, fostering a more favorable fire environment across forested systems. We demonstrate that human-caused climate change caused over half of the documented increases in dry forests since the 1970s and doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984. This analysis suggests that anthropogenic climate change will continue to chronically enhance the potential for western forest fire activity. “[i] Extensive fires in countries such as Indonesia can interfere with weather and ocean currents. Smoke plumes can be seen in satellite photographs extending thousand of kilometers. Lightning StormsA new NASA-funded study found
that lightning storms were the main driver of
recent massive fire years in Alaska and northern Canada, and that these storms
are likely to move farther north with climate warming, potentially altering
northern landscapes.
The team found increases of between two and five
percent a year in the number of lightning-ignited fires since 1975. Higher
atmospheric temperatures create more thunderstorms.
Fires are creeping
farther north, near the transition from boreal forests to Arctic tundra.
In high-latitude ecosystems, permafrost soils store large amounts of carbon that
become vulnerable after fires pass through."Exposed mineral soils after tundra
fires also provide favorable seedbeds for trees migrating north under a warmer
climate." A complex feedback loop between climate, lightning, fires, carbon and
forests that may quickly alter northern landscapes.[ii] Increasing Fires from Global WarmingThere are important difference between natural fires that are limited in scope and duration and the massive, destructive fires that are now more frequent occurrences. Abnormal fires are often caused by human carelessness or involve human changes to the environment. According to Natural Resources Canada:” Wildland fires present a challenge for forest management because they have the potential to be at once harmful and beneficial. Wildland fires can threaten communities and destroy vast amounts of timber resources, resulting in costly losses. On the other hand, wildland fires are a natural part of the forest ecosystem and important in many parts of Canada for maintaining the health and diversity of the forest. In this way, prescribed fires offer a valuable resource management tool for enhancing ecological conditions and eliminating excessive fuel build-up. Not all wildland fires should (or can) be controlled. Forest agencies work to harness the force of natural fire to take advantage of its ecological benefits while at the same time limiting its potential damage and costs. This makes fire control strategies a vital component of forest management and emergency management in Canada.”[iv]Canada has 9% of the world’s forests. In 2015, the total forest
burned
in
Canada, 2015 is 3,004,848 hectares. That’s
a larger area than the island of
Sicily, Italy.
And in 2014, which was the worst fire season since
2007,
4,123,986 hectares burned, the equivalent of burning the entire country of
Switzerland.
Fighting fires across areas larger than small countries is a
collaborative effort. Firefighters from across the country and even from the
United States have pitched in to help combat the active fire season. There were more than 67,000 wildfires across the United States in 2016. The fires burned over 5.5 million acres. In 2015, when severe drought in the West created conditions favorable to conditions, over 10 million acres burned. The National Interagency Fire Center, a group of connected federal agencies monitor wildfires in every state. While fires can and do occur anywhere there are trees, they are more common and destructive in some parts of the country, particularly in sparsely populated states. In Alaska, more than 12 million acres have burned over the last 10 years, more than the total burned acreage in 38 other states combined. The 6.9 million acres burned in Idaho due to wildfires from 2007 through 2016 is equal to about 13% of the total landmass of the state. [v] Thousands of small forest fires have burned across the islands of Sumatra and
Borneo, the habitats for orangutans and other rare species. Indonesia’s fires
are much worse than California’s. They are deliberately set and many of them
occur in carbon-rich peat forests. These forests—which would normally be wet and
hard to burn grow out of several meters’ worth of damp, rich organic matter
instead of soil. The peat forests can become so dry, one match or a cigarette
would let it all go up in flames.
This releases more carbon than normal forest
fires, and makes the fires hard to control. Even if things look fine, there
are actually fires burning 20 feet below the ground The fires threaten more than
just Indonesia’s wildlife. They have also created a cloud of smoke and haze big
enough to be seen from space and are releasing an estimated 15 to 20 million
tons of carbon dioxide per day—more than the emissions from the entire U.S.
economy. [vi]
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