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but it takes time to communicate the prevention message throughout the commu-
nity. Early warning provides the advance information needed to implement preven-
tion action plans before dangerous burning conditions occur. When a wildfi re does
occur locally and there is imminent threat to human life, very short-term (or last
minute) early warning systems such as AFIS can be very effective at the local level
to rapidly inform people.
7.3.6
Future Global System Development and Implementation
There are a number of satellite data and modeling enhancements to the Global
EWS-Fire that are being explored. Advances in measuring spatial precipitation from
space likely offer the single largest improvement to the accuracy of fi re danger maps
and could reduce or eliminate the need for spatial interpolation of precipitation from
ground-based point sources. Remotely sensed fuel mapping is also being pursued to
develop a global fuel type map, which would be a fi rst step towards developing
global fi re behavior prediction models. Monitoring of live fuel moisture (Ceccato
et al. 2003 ) can contribute to establishing fuel fl ammability and seasonal criteria that
are important to fi re behavior models and monitoring/modeling of fuel consump-
tion, fi re spread rate, and carbon emissions. The use of remotely sensed fi re radiative
energy to estimate fuel consumption and carbon emissions is currently being studied
(Wooster 2002 ; Wooster et al. 2003 ). Fuel consumption could also potentially be
combined with satellite-monitored daily fi re spread data to calculate fi re intensity.
7.4
Climate Change, Early Warning Systems,
and Future Fire Management
Current climate change models are in agreement that there will be increases in both
fi re occurrence and severity, resulting in larger fi res and more area burned, which
raises serious doubts over the ability of fi re management agencies to effectively
mitigate future fi re impacts. The substantial increases in fi re severity predicted glob-
ally across climate change scenarios by the end of this century are truly noteworthy
for wildland fi re managers. Increases of up to 300 % in cumulative seasonal fi re
severity, particularly in the northern circumpolar region, will place unprecedented
demands on fi re suppression resources. Some of the seasonal fi re severity increase
is due to longer fi re seasons (about 20-30 days), but the vast majority of the increase
is due to increased fi re intensity and subsequent control diffi culty. Fire suppression
action most often fails during high intensity crown fi res (Stocks et al. 2004 ), and the
climate change scenarios of the most recent studies indicate that this type of fi re
behavior will occur with greater frequency in the future. Many countries of the
world operate highly effi cient fi re management organizations that have a high fi re
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