Free Standard AU & NZ Shipping For All Book Orders Over $80!
Register      Login
International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
Shopping Cart: ( empty )
You are here: Home > Journals > WF > WF08187
REVIEW
Contents Vol 18(5)

Implications of changing climate for global wildland fire

Mike D. Flannigan A C , Meg A. Krawchuk B , William J. de Groot A , B. Mike Wotton A and Lynn M. Gowman A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen Street-East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2E5, Canada.

B University of California, Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, 335 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

C Corresponding author. Email: mike.flannigan@nrcan.gc.ca

International Journal of Wildland Fire 18(5) 483-507 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08187
Submitted: 18 November 2008  Accepted: 15 June 2009   Published: 10 August 2009

Abstract

Wildland fire is a global phenomenon, and a result of interactions between climate–weather, fuels and people. Our climate is changing rapidly primarily through the release of greenhouse gases that may have profound and possibly unexpected impacts on global fire activity. The present paper reviews the current understanding of what the future may bring with respect to wildland fire and discusses future options for research and management. To date, research suggests a general increase in area burned and fire occurrence but there is a lot of spatial variability, with some areas of no change or even decreases in area burned and occurrence. Fire seasons are lengthening for temperate and boreal regions and this trend should continue in a warmer world. Future trends of fire severity and intensity are difficult to determine owing to the complex and non-linear interactions between weather, vegetation and people. Improved fire data are required along with continued global studies that dynamically include weather, vegetation, people, and other disturbances. Lastly, we need more research on the role of policy, practices and human behaviour because most of the global fire activity is directly attributable to people.

Additional keywords: area burned, carbon, emissions, fire activity, forest fire, intensity, management, modelling, occurrence, review, season, severity, weather.


Acknowledgements

We would like to gratefully acknowledge Florent Mouillot for the contribution of data to produce Fig. 3. We would also like to thank Ivan Csiszar and Minnie Wong for providing Fig. 2, and Alan Cantin for assistance with compiling data.


References


Alencar A, Nepstad D , Diaz Md C V (2006) Forest understory fire in the Brazilian Amazon in ENSO and non-ENSO years: area burned and committed carbon emissions. Earth Interactions  10, 1–17.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Blackmarr WH (1973) Moisture content influences ignitability of slash pine litter. USDA Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Research Note SE-173. (Asheville, NC)

Bonan GB, Levis S, Sitch S, Vertenstein M , Oleson KW (2003) A dynamic global vegetation model for use with climate models: concepts and description of simulated vegetation dynamics. Global Change Biology  9, 1543–1566.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Crutzen PJ, Goldammer JG (Eds) (1993) ‘Fire in the Environment: the Ecological, Atmospheric, and Climatic Importance of Vegetation Fires.’ (Wiley: Chichester, UK)

Cumming SG (2001) Forest type and wildfire in the Alberta boreal mixedwood: what do fires burn? Ecological Applications  11, 97–110.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Drever CR, Bergeron Y, Drever MC, Flannigan MD, Logan T, Messier C (2009) Effects of climate on occurrence and size of large fires in a northern hardwood landscape: historical trends, future predictions, and implications for climate change in Témiscamingue, Québec. Applied Vegetation Science, in press. doi:10.1111/J.1654-109X.2009.01035.X

FAO (2006) Fire management: review of international cooperation. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Fire Management Working Paper FM18E. (Rome)

FAO (2007) Fire management – global assessment 2006. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO Forestry Paper 151. (Rome)

Fernandes PM, Botelho PM, Loureiro C (2002) Models for the sustained ignition and behavior of low-to-moderately intense fires in maritime pine stands. In ‘IV International Conference on Forest Fire Research/2002 Wildland Fire Safety Summit’, 18–23 November 2002, Luso, Coimbra, Portugal. (Millpress Science Publishers: Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

Finney MA (2007) A computational method for optimising fuel treatment locations. International Journal of Wildland Fire  16, 702–711.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Glover D, Jessup T (1999) ‘Indonesia’s Fires and Haze: the Cost of Catastrophe.’ (Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: Singapore)

Goldammer J (Ed.) (1990) ‘Fire in the Tropical Biota, Ecosystem Processes and Global Challenges.’ (Springer-Verlag: Berlin)

Goldammer JG , Price C (1998) Potential impacts of climate change on fire regimes in the tropics based on Magicc and a GISS GCM-derived lightning model. Climatic Change  39, 273–296.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Goldammer JG, Statheropoulos M, Andreae MO (2009) Impacts of vegetation fire emissions on the environment, human health, and security: a global perspective. In ‘Developments in Environmental Science’. (Series Ed. SV Krupa) ‘Vol 8: Wildland Fires and Air Pollution.’ (Eds A Bytnerowicz, MJ Arbaugh, AR Riebau, C Andersen) pp. 1–36. (Elsevier: the Netherlands)

González ME , Veblen TT (2006) Climatic influences on fire in Araucaria araucana–Nothofagus forests in the Andean cordillera of south-central Chile. Ecoscience  13, 342–350.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Eds RK Pachauri, A Reisinger) (Geneva, Switzerland)

Johnson EA , Wowchuk DR (1993) Wildfires in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains and their relationship to mid-tropospheric anomalies. Canadian Journal of Forest Research  23, 1213–1222.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Kafka V, Parisien MA, Hirsch A, Flannigan MD, Todd JB (2001) Climate change in the prairie provinces: assessing landscape fire behavior potential and evaluating fuel treatment as an adaptation strategy. Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre. (Edmonton, AB)

Kasischke ES, Stocks BJ (Eds) (2000) ‘Fire, Climate Change, and Carbon Cycling in the Boreal Forest.’ (Springer-Verlag: New York)

Keane RE, Holsinger LM, Parsons RA , Gray K (2008) Climate change effects on historical range and variability of two large landscapes in western Montana, USA. Forest Ecology and Management  254, 375–389.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Lawson BD, Frandsen WH, Hawkes BC, Dalrymple GN (1997) Probability of sustained smoldering ignition for some boreal duff types. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, Forest Management Note 63. (Edmonton, AB)

Le Goff H, Flannigan MD, Bergeron Y , Girardin M-P (2007) Historical fire regime shifts related to climate teleconnections in the Waswanipi area, central Quebec, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire  16, 607–618.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Mahaffey K (1999) Methylmercury: a new look at the risks. Public Health Reports 114, 396–399, 402–413.

Malanson GP , Westman WE (1991) Modeling interactive effects of climate change, air pollution, and fire on a California shrubland. Climatic Change  18, 363–376.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Meehl GA, Stocker TF, Collins WD, Friedlingstein P, Gaye AT, Gregory JM, Kitoh  A, Knutti R, et al. (2007) Global climate projections. In ‘Climate Change 2007: the Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’. (Eds S Solomon, D Qin, M Manning, Z Chen, M Marquis, KB Averyt, M Tignor, HL Miller) pp. 747–845. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK)

Meyn A, White PS, Buhk C , Jentsch A (2007) Environmental drivers of large, infrequent wildfires: the emerging conceptual model. Progress in Physical Geography  31, 287–312.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Pyne SJ (2007) ‘Awful Splendour – a History of Fire in Canada.’ (University of British Columbia Press: Vancouver, BC)

Pyne SJ (2008) Passing the torch. The American Scholar  77, 22–33.
US EPA (2004) Six common air pollutants. Available at http://www.epa.gov/oar/urbanair/6poll.html [Verified 3 November 2004]

van der Werf GR, Randerson JT, Giglio L, Collatz GJ, Kasibhatla PS , Arellano AF (2006) Interannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics  6, 3423–3441.

|  CAS | Viegas DX (Ed.) (2002) ‘Proceedings of the IV International Conference on Forest Fire Research & Wildland Fire Safety Summit.’ 18–23 November 2002, Luso, Coimbra, Portugal. (Millpress: Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

Volney WJA , Fleming RA (2000) Climate change and impacts of boreal forest insects. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment  82, 283–294.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Wotton BM, Stocks BJ (2006) Fire management in Canada: vulnerability and risk trends. In ‘Canadian Wildland Fire Strategy: Background Synthesis, Analysis, and Perspectives’. (Eds K Hirsch, P Fuglem) pp. 49–55. (Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre: Edmonton, AB)

Wotton BM, Martell DL , Logan KA (2003) Climate change and people-caused forest fire occurrence in Ontario. Climatic Change  60, 275–295.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | CAS | Xanthopoulos G, Caballero D, Galante M, Alexandrian D, Rigolot E, Marzano R (2006) Forest fuels management in Europe. In ‘Fuels Management – How to Measure Success’, 28–30 March 2006, Portland, OR. (Eds PL Andrews, BW Butler) USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Proceedings RMRS-P-41, pp. 29–46. (Fort Collins, CO)

Zhang Y , Battisti D (1997) ENSO-like interdecadal variability: 1900–93. Journal of Climate  10, 1004–1020.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Zoltai SC, Martikainen PJ (1996) The role of forested peatlands in the global carbon cycle. In ‘Forest Ecosystems, Forest Management and the Global Carbon Cycle’, NATO ASI Series I. (Eds MJ Apps, DT Price) pp. 47–58. (Springer-Verlag: Heidelberg)

Zoltai SC, Morrissey LA, Livingston GP , de Groot WJ (1998) Effects of fires on carbon cycling in North American boreal peatlands. Environmental Reviews  6, 13–24.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | CAS |




1 The term ‘fire severity’ is used in different ways in the published literature. Here, it is defined as a component of the fire regime: indicating depth of burn or fuel consumption of the ground layer.

2 The number of fires and difficulty in controlling those fires is generally indicated here by the term ‘fire load’.