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International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Wildfire incidence in western Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) from 1995 to 2020

Ben Gosden A , Harold Lovell https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9435-3178 A * and Mark Hardiman https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7693-4975 A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.

* Correspondence to: harold.lovell@port.ac.uk

International Journal of Wildland Fire 31(11) 1033-1042 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22063
Submitted: 3 May 2022  Accepted: 25 September 2022   Published: 11 October 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF.

Abstract

Background: Recent widely reported large tundra fires in western Greenland have focused attention on the fire regime in a region that is currently under-represented in global fire research.

Aims: We present an analysis of fire incidence from 1995 to 2020.

Methods: A combination of satellite remote sensing and a review of reports in the online version of the national newspaper, Sermitsiaq.AG, were used to identify wildfires.

Key results: Our analysis did not detect fires from 1995 to 2007. From 2008, 21 separate fire events were identified in selected study areas covering ~47% of ice-free western Greenland. All but four of the 21 fires ignited in July or August during periods of warm and dry weather.

Conclusions: We find no evidence of fires in our study areas until 2008, after which fires occur in most years.

Implications: Projected warming and reduced summer precipitation in this region in upcoming decades suggest the landscape will become increasingly prone to tundra fires.

Keywords: wildfire, fire history, tundra, remote sensing, satellite images, normalised burn ratio, western Greenland, Arctic.


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