Firefighting efforts are making future fires burn more severe and under harsh conditions, exacerbating the effects of climate change, a new study finds.
Suppression efforts will minimize the overall area burned, but virtually eliminate the possibility of low- and medium-intensity fires, according to the study released Monday. nature communications. The study found that fires in such environments were “biased” towards more extreme behavior, significantly increasing their severity.
“Fighting fires has unintended consequences,” says lead author Dr. Mark Crider. candidate in the Forest and Conservation Science Program at the University of Montana, the statement said.
“We’ve known for a long time that when you put out a fire, fuel builds up,” he continued. “Here we present another, counterintuitive result.”
Crider and his colleagues relied on computer simulations that account for the basic elements of a fire, including weather, fuel moisture, ignition, fire growth, extinguishing, and ecological effects. To isolate the effects of suppression, they simulated thousands of fires with identical biophysical conditions that differed only in the magnitude of suppression activity.
Ultimately, a hypothetical attempt to suppress all wildfires would result in fires so intense that their destructive effects would ultimately outweigh both fuel accumulation and climate change. I was able to prove it.
This so-called “suppression bias” may therefore have “an important, underappreciated impact on global fire patterns,” Kreider explained.
Mock suppression operations caused areas in the western United States to burn three to five times faster than in the world without such operations for 240 years. The study found that suppression increased the severity of fires by an amount equivalent to a century of climate change and fuel accumulation.
“Traditional fire suppression works by burning thin-barked tree species and eliminating low-severity fires that “help perpetuate healthy forests,” said lead author Andrew Larson, a forest ecology professor at the University of Montana. said in a statement.
“To what extent are we altering natural selection through fire suppression by exposing plants and animals to relatively low-risk or relatively severe fires?” Larson asked.
The authors compared wildfire suppression to “overprescribing antibiotics,” explaining that even if you tried to eliminate all fires, you would only be able to eradicate less severe fires.
But scientists also offered hope for a way out of the situation. He explained that allowing more low- and medium-intensity fires could reduce or reverse the damage caused so far.
The study says it has the potential to reduce average fire severity by allowing fires to burn under moderate weather conditions, while suppressing fires that occur during more dangerous fire weather.
“As part of addressing our nation’s fire crisis, it is also important to learn how to embrace more fires burning as safely as possible,” co-author Philip Higuera, a University of Montana professor who specializes in fire ecology, said in a statement. Stated. “It’s as important as reducing fuel and tackling global warming.”
The researchers emphasized the importance of developing and deploying techniques and tactics to safely manage wildfires under moderate burning conditions.
“By trying to suppress all fires, we are creating a more bleak future for the present,” Crider said.
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