The burning issue — extreme heatwaves lead to record forest fires globally
As Europe’s forests burn, why are wildfires getting worse? Michael Taylor reports from Kuala Lumpur.
SEVERAL European nations such as Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain have recently struggled to cope with raging wildfires, driven by deadly heatwaves and drought, which have displaced thousands of people.
As well as stretching emergency services to breaking point and causing harm to both the environment and people, wildfires release planetwarming carbon dioxide (CO2), further fuelling climate change and extreme weather conditions.
Globally, forest fires are getting worse. The 2021 fire season was the secondworst on record, according to the University of Maryland and monitoring service Global Forest
New data published last week by GFW, which is run by the World Resources Institute, a United Statesbased thinktank, showed that forest fires are becoming more widespread and burning about twice as much tree cover now than they did 20 years ago.
Here is what GFW researchers found out about forest fires worldwide using satellite imagery — and why it matters:
How bad are forest fires today? Forest fires now cause 3 million more hectares of tree cover loss each year than they did in 2001.
These fires accounted for more than a quarter of all tree cover loss over the past two decades. Nonfire related factors range from clearing land for logging to river meandering.
Last year was one of the worst for forest fires since the turn of the century, causing 9.3 million ha of treecover loss globally, more than a third of all losses in 2021.
Climate change is a major driver of the rise in fires, with extreme heatwaves five times more likely now than 150 years ago and expected to become even more frequent as the planet continues to warm.
Hotter temperatures dry out forests and landscapes to create the ideal environment for larger, more frequent forest fires. This results in higher CO2 emissions, further exacerbating climate change and in turn contributing to more fires.
Where do the worst forest fires occur?
About 70% of all firerelated tree cover loss over the past two decades occurred in boreal forests found in the far northern regions including Canada, Russia and Alaska.
While fire is a natural part of how boreal forests function ecologically, firerelated tree cover loss increased by a rate of about 110,000ha (3%) per year over the last 20 years.
The increase in boreal forest fires is likely due to northern highlatitude regions warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, the new research said.
This leads to longer fire seasons, greater fire frequency and severity, and larger burned areas in these regions.
Last year, for example, Russia had 5.4 million hectares of firerelated tree cover loss — the most recorded in the last two decades — and a 31% increase on 2020.
This was largely because of prolonged heatwaves that would have not happened were it not for climate change, researchers said.
Boreal forests are among the largest carbon sinks on Earth, with most of the carbon stored underground in the soil, including in permafrost.
Historically, this carbon has been protected from infrequent fires that occur naturally. But warmer temperatures and more frequent fires are melting permafrost and making soil carbon more vulnerable to burning.
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