Managing the risk of wildfires

A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme says wildfires will become an increasing reality for the world due to climate change and other factors. Thus, fire management and risk reduction are essential.

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Fire is changing because we are changing the conditions in which it occurs. Not all fires are harmful, and not all fires need to be extinguished as they serve important ecological purposes. However, wildfires that burn for weeks and that may affect millions of people over thousands of square kilometres present a challenge that, right now, we are not prepared for.

Lightning strikes and human carelessness have always sparked, and will always spark, uncontrolled blazes, but anthropogenic climate change, land-use change, and poor land and forest management mean wildfires are more often encountering the fuel and weather conditions conducive to becoming destructive. Wildfires are burning longer and hotter in places, they have always occurred, and are flaring up in unexpected places too, like in drying peatlands and on thawing permafrost. Last year, fires that got out of control in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland in Latin America, destroyed almost a third of one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots, and there are now genuine concerns that this wetland will never fully recover.

Not only can wildfires reduce biodiversity, but they contribute to a climate change feedback loop by emitting huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, spurring more warming, more drying, and more burning. The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes, while more extreme weather means stronger, hotter, drier winds to fan the flames. Too often, our response is tardy, costly, and after the fact, with many countries suffering from a chronic lack of investment in planning and prevention. This report makes it clear that the true cost of wildfires, whether financial, social or environmental, extends for days, weeks, and even years after the flames subside.