Climate Change and Early Warning Systems for Wildland Fire - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 122

Chapter 7
Climate Change and Early Warning Systems
for Wildland Fire
William J. de Groot and Michael D. Flannigan
Abstract Wildland fi res burn several hundred million hectares of vegetation
around the world every year. A proportion of these wildland fi res cause disastrous
social, economic, and/or environmental impacts. Disaster fi res occur in every
global region and vegetated biome. Recent research suggests a general increase in
area burned and fi re occurrence during the last few decades, but there is much
global variability. Wildland fi re regimes are primarily driven by climate/weather,
fuels, ignition agents, and people. All of these factors are dynamic and their vari-
able interactions create a mosaic of fi re regimes around the world. Climate change
will have a substantial impact on future fi re regimes. Under a warmer and drier
future climate, fi re management agencies will be challenged by fi re weather condi-
tions that could push current suppression capacity beyond a tipping point, resulting
in a substantial increase in large fi res, and a corresponding increase in disaster fi res.
To mitigate or prevent wildfi re disaster, land and forest fi re managers require early
warning of extreme fi re danger conditions. This allows time to implement fi re pre-
vention, detection, and presuppression action plans before disaster fi res occur. Fire
danger rating is the cornerstone of fi re management decision-making and is com-
monly used to provide early warning of potential wildfi res. Currently, less than half
of the world has a national fi re danger rating system in place. The Global Early
Warning System for Wildland Fire is based on extended fi re danger forecasts and
aims to contribute to the Global Multi-Hazard Early Warning System evolving
under the auspices of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster