A research team led by scientists from Argonne National Laboratory in the United States has found that rates… Forest fires Their intensity and length will increase with time, and specialists in forest fire management areas must prepare now for levels that may be catastrophic.
To reach these results, which were published in the journal Earth’s Future, researchers used satellite data issued from 1984 to 2019 to study 13,000 previous forest fires on the North American continent, especially the United States of America, in order to find out the extent to which potential fire risks are related to the final size of fires. Forests, and they found that when the risk of forest fires was higher, the size of the forest fires was larger.
The risks of forest fires are determined by several factors, namely the probability of fires occurring or not, the severity of the fire, the possibility of humans being exposed to the fire, and the extent of the damage expected to occur. They are all related to the nature of the forests, the extent of their dryness, their location relative to each other, their proximity to residential areas, and the nature of the buildings in those residential areas.
By integrating fire risk indicators with future climate projections, the study found that the risk of severe wildfires will increase by an additional 10 days per year, and in some regions, such as the southern Great Plains in the United States of America, the rate of fires will increase by more than 40 additional days per year. Most of them will be in the spring and summer months.
Forest fires and climate change
In addition, some forest fires may extend into the winter months, according to the study, especially with lower rainfall rates than before, which increases the dryness of plants, and consequently facilitates the ignition and spread of fires.
It does not affect Climate change On forest fires only due to lack of rain, heat waves cause plants to dry out to an extreme degree, which facilitates their ignition, which prolongs the duration, intensity and spread of fires. In addition, the change in average temperatures causes dry tree leaves to fall and the trees themselves to die at greater rates, which is what It facilitates the spread of fires.
Another problem in this context is related to the nature of the fire season itself, which usually begins in one area and then moves to another, but with climate change it has become possible for fires to arise at greater rates in separate areas, which places heavy loads on the state’s resources and prevents it from acting effectively during the fire season. Fires.
Scientific consensus
This is confirmed by several other studies. For example, in 2020, an international team of scientists conducted a research review of 57 previous studies in this field, all of which showed links between climate change and the increased frequency and intensity of fire weather, which is defined as the conditions suitable for the outbreak of forest fires, such as high temperatures. Low humidity, low rainfall and strong winds.
The review noted that rising global temperatures, more frequent heatwaves and droughts will increase the likelihood of wildfires by enhancing fire weather.
Monitoring data in this study showed that fire weather seasons extended across approximately 25% of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an approximately 20% increase in the global average fire weather season length.
And according to statement A journalist from the American “Desert Research” Foundation, which participated in the “Earth’s Future” study, said that specialists in fire risk assessment areas must update their data with climate change factors, in order to effectively prepare for more severe and longer fire seasons.
