wildfires Archives

Measuring greenhouse gas emissions from wildfires from space

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Using carbon monoxide to measure greenhouse gas emissions from forest fires using satellites instead of traditional monitoring options

Vast areas of the Northern Hemisphere in Siberia, Canada, and Alaska are covered in forest. Fires (wildfires) in this wilderness are quite common, with the forests being at risk twice a year, first in spring and then in late summer. Occasionally these wildfires reach populated places causing damage to homes and other city buildings. Furthermore, many experts believe that carbon […]

Dousing the flames: A model approach to fire management

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Fire management is complex, and strategies that work in one geographic area are unlikely to work in another owing to the unique geographical, ecological, and socioeconomic conditions. Professor Trent Penman at the University of Melbourne, Australia, is using Bayesian decision networks to model cost-effective wildfire management options (ie, types of prescribed burning). The model shows that no single cost-effective solution […]

Disturbance calls for disaster: Why forest fires increase landslides and rockfall hazards

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Disturbances calls for disaster: Why forest fires increase landslides and rockfall hazards

The last thing you want after a forest fire is the imminent threat of natural hazards such as rockfall or landslide. Unfortunately, however, this is quite likely. Fire-injured trees may die, their roots may fail to bolster soil strength, and the ground can easily give way. Built-up areas below forested slopes are especially susceptible, and lives could be in danger. […]

Are wildfires following bark beetles more severe?

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Bark beetles are responsible for large numbers of dead trees in ponderosa pine forests in the United States. The relationship between tree mortality caused by bark beetles and increasingly severe wildfires has been analysed by Carolyn Sieg and colleagues using a detailed physics-based fire behaviour model. The team seeks to understand if fires that follow beetles are more severe, that […]