Climate Change and Early Warning Systems for Wildland Fire - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 143

control success rate. However, climate change may cause a disproportionate increase
in uncontrolled fi res because many fi re management organizations already operate
at near to optimum effi ciency; thus, any further increase in fi re control diffi culty will
force many more fi res beyond a threshold of suppression capability (cf Flannigan
et al. 2009b ; Podur and Wotton 2010 ). Perhaps we are already experiencing what is
to come with many recent disastrous fi res.
Increased wildland fi re on the landscape in the future will force fi re management
agencies to reassess policy and strategy. All wildland areas cannot be protected from
fi re, and many high value areas that are managed with a policy of fi re exclusion will
be threatened by wildfi re. Forest fi re management agencies currently operate with a
very narrow margin between suppression success and failure, and a warmer and drier
climate will result in more fi res escaping initial attack efforts and becoming large
campaign wildfi res (Stocks 1993 ). With greater occurrence of large wildfi res, in
combination with increasing exposure of people to fi re on the landscape (due to
population increase and community expansion further into wildland areas), an
increase in wildfi re disaster occurrence can be expected in the coming century. The
international fi re management community understands that greater collaboration in
fi re management is a key strategy in combating the increasing threat of wildland fi re,
particularly through the sharing of fi re suppression resources. Early warning systems
will play a critical role in identifying future periods of extreme burning conditions,
allowing agencies to implement resource-sharing agreements, and activating fi re
prevention, detection, and suppression action plans before disaster fi res occur.
Acknowledgments Alan Cantin designed the Global EWS-Fire website. Natasha Jurko prepared
the demonstration material for Central and South America. Alan Cantin and Chelene Krezek-
Hanes prepared the pilot study demonstration material for sub-Saharan Africa. Johann Goldammer,
Chris Justice, Tim Lynham, Ivan Csiszar, Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz, Kevin O'Loughlin, Tom
Keenan, and Graham Mills collaborated in Global EWS-Fire development. Johann Goldammer,
Brian Stocks, and Mike Wotton provided helpful review comments.
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