UNNATURAL WILDFIRES
We’ve always had wildfires, and fire is an intrinsic, good part of the earth’s system. We need some level of fire to regenerate ecosystems. But fire is also one of the most complex physical systems we have. It responds to fuels and weather and chemistry and human dynamics and these days it’s responding to a thirsty, warming climate.
The last few summers have been some of the hottest on record, with 2023 topping the list, and a hotter summer is also a drier summer, especially in the west. Hot air holds more water, so when it’s hot the atmosphere is thirstier. To quench its thirst, it sucks up moisture from the landscape, drying out grass and trees, desiccating the land and turning the dry vegetation into fuel for wildfires.
Even in a world with hot, long summers, which are full of fuel, we’re getting a range of different fire types. Healthy fires come through at lower heat and lower flame length burning some of the ground level surface fuels, cleaning up the fuels leaving tree canopies intact. While some amount of high-intensity fire is natural and not necessarily bad for the ecosystem. But when it’s hot and there is abundant fuel on the landscape, fires burn hotter and longer, consuming all the available fuel, and incinerating whole forests and grasslands. Those conditions create the kind of catastrophic fires we’re seeing more frequently: hotter, bigger, more destructive and longer lived.
In the article linked below, Dr. Neil Lareau, an atmospheric scientist, says we know that those kinds of fires are driven by climate change, as opposed to fire management techniques or land use policy because they’re happening all over the globe.
Poor forest management, pine beetle infestations and the absence of cultural burns are also significant contributing factors that need to be addressed. Governments need to implement solutions including modifying reforestation requirements to plant a more diverse mix of species, incentivizing more active forms of forest management—such as tree thinning, deadwood removal, and re-introducing cultural burning practices led by Indigenous communities.
This isn't meant to cause despair. There are actions we can take……….most importantly tackling climate change. Climate change is caused by rising emissions. Emissions are caused by burning fossil fuels. It’s that simple. Renewable energy (wind and solar) don’t generate emissions and they are cheaper to develop and install. Governments need to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy which is a main component of our provincial and federal lobby/advocacy efforts at POW Canada.
The impacts of climate change are likely to persist, so we must adapt but most importantly, we need to continue fighting against future emissions.