Global increase in wildfire risk due to climate‐driven declines in fuel moisture

There is mounting concern that global wildfire activity is shifting in frequency, intensity, and seasonality in response to climate change. Fuel moisture provides a powerful means of detecting changing fire potential. Here, we use global burned area, weather reanalysis data, and the Canadian fire we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global change biology 2022-02, Vol.28 (4), p.1544-1559
Main Authors: Ellis, Todd M., Bowman, David M. J. S., Jain, Piyush, Flannigan, Mike D., Williamson, Grant J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
Canada
Climate Change
climate reanalysis
Drying
Ecosystem
Environmental risk
fire risk
Fires
fuel
fuel moisture
Fuel production
Fuels
Moisture content
net primary productivity
Productivity
pyrogeography
Seasonal variations
Seasonality
Trends
Vegetation
Water content
Weather
Wetting
wildfire
Wildfires
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Summary:There is mounting concern that global wildfire activity is shifting in frequency, intensity, and seasonality in response to climate change. Fuel moisture provides a powerful means of detecting changing fire potential. Here, we use global burned area, weather reanalysis data, and the Canadian fire weather index system to calculate fuel moisture trends for multiscale biogeographic regions across a gradient in vegetation productivity. We quantify the proportion of days in the local fire season between 1979 and 2019, where fuel moisture content is below a critical threshold indicating extreme fire potential. We then associate fuel moisture trends over that period to vegetation productivity and comment on its implications for projected anthropogenic climate change. Overall, there is a strong drying trend across realms, biomes, and the productivity gradient. Even where a wetting trend is observed, this often indicates a trend toward increasing fire activity due to an expected increase in fuel production. The detected trends across the productivity gradient lead us to conclude global fire activity will increase with anthropogenic climate change. The last 40 years have seen a strong drying trend across wildfire fuels worldwide. Even where a wetting trend is observed, this often indicates a trend toward increasing fire activity due to an expected increase in fuel production. These detected trends lead us to conclude global fire activity will increase with anthropogenic climate change.
ISSN:1354-1013
1365-2486
DOI:10.1111/gcb.16006