Wildfire incidence in western Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) from 1995 to 2020
Ben Gosden A , Harold Lovell
A * and Mark Hardiman 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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