People and the environment are increasingly facing risks from wildfires. Changes in climate, land use, land management practices and population are shifting the risk in wildfires, with more regions becoming vulnerable to fires they weren’t seeing previously.
Vegetation fires occur all the time in nearly every type of environment. While such fires can be destructive, over hundreds of millions of years they have also played a crucial role in evolution, shaping the global distribution of vegetation, and sustaining biodiversity.
But people also light vegetation fires for many reasons - clearing land for agriculture, grazing, conflicts, etc.
However, sometimes fires escape control or are lit maliciously and intentionally left to spread.
Whether caused by humans or nature, when fires burn out of control, they can become wildfires. And in the last few years, the world has seen a drastic shift in wildfire regimes, with more intense and frequent wildfires affecting large areas of land.
Resources
- Perfect storm: when climate change stokes wildfires, marine heatwaves and biodiversity loss
- Preventing Peatland fires in Indonesia
- Governments, smart data and wildfires: where are we at?
- Yes, climate change is driving wildfires
- Protecting Indonesia’s Peatlands through Proactive Fire Mitigation in Indonesia
- Who turned up the temperature? Climate change, heatwaves and wildfires
- Are “megafires” the new normal?
- Ten impacts of the Australian bushfires
- The effect of wildfires on sustainable development
- Can forest restoration reduce the threat of megafires?
