Climate Change On Wildfire Activity

This report provides a global assessment and outlook on wildfire risk in the context of climate change. It discusses the drivers behind the growing incidence of extreme wildfires and the attribution effect of climate change.

This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.

The increased fi re load is expected to increase the cost of fi re management in the province 16% by the year 2040 and 54% by the year 2090 over year 2000 costs, exclusive of infl ation or other factors. [...] In addition to increases in seasonal fi re severity indices, a number of these studies also predict increases in the frequency of occurrence of extreme fi re danger in some areas of the country (e.g., Stocks et al. [...] This study uses lightning- and people-caused fi re occurrence models developed specifi cally for Ontario with GCM projections of future climate and Ontario's level of protection analysis software, LEOPARDS (see McAlpine and Hirsch 1999) to estimate the impacts of climate change on the fi re management organization both in terms of numbers of escaped fi res and with respect to changes in operationa [...] The sites of the GCM grid cell centres and OMNR weather stations used are shown in Figure 1. Fire Weather and Fire Danger To create the fi re climate of a future decade, the monthly anomalies were applied to the daily data from the OMNR fi re weather station archive from the years 1992-2001 (corresponding to the period over which lightning records were available). [...] The Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) System (Forestry Canada Fire Danger Group 1992) was used in conjunction with the Initial Spread Index (ISI), the Build-up Index (BUI) (calculated on the detection date of the fi re using the FWI System), and the fuel type associated with the fi re to estimate an initial rate of spread for each fi re.

Increasing forest fire activity is of great concern to many Canadians. Forestry plays a key roll in the Canadian economy and the Canadian way of living. This workshop had five objectives: determine whether fire activity has increased ; evaluate and prioritize the possible causes ; summarize the potential impacts ; recommend appropriate responses ; and communicate the findings and recommendations, which is the purpose of this report. The report combines presentation notes taken by Paul Ward and discussion notes taken by the rapporteurs. It summarizes the workshop and makes no attempt to interpret the discussions, findings, or recommendations from any particular perspective.

A technical introduction to the behaviour of fire and its ecological consequences, using examples from the North American boreal forest.