Fire deficit increases wildfire risk for many communities in the Canadian boreal forest

The top priority of fire management agencies in Canada is to protect human life and property. Here we investigate if decades of aggressive fire suppression in the boreal biome of Canada has reduced the proportion of recently burned forests (RBF; <30 years) near human communities, and thereby inad...

Celý popis

Uložené v:

Podrobná bibliografia
Vydané v:	Nature communications Ročník 11; číslo 1; s. 2121 - 9
Hlavní autori:	Parisien, Marc-André, Barber, Quinn E., Hirsch, Kelvin G., Stockdale, Christopher A., Erni, Sandy, Wang, Xianli, Arseneault, Dominique, Parks, Sean A.
Médium:	Journal Article
Jazyk:	English
Vydavateľské údaje:	London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.05.2020 Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio
Predmet:	704/158/2449 704/158/2465 704/172 704/4111 Boreal forests Environmental risk Flammability Forests Humanities and Social Sciences multidisciplinary open climate campaign Risk Science Science (multidisciplinary) Taiga Wildfires Wildland-urban interface Canada
ISSN:	2041-1723, 2041-1723
On-line prístup:	Získať plný text
Tagy:	Pridať tag Žiadne tagy, Buďte prvý, kto otaguje tento záznam!

Popis
Shrnutí:	The top priority of fire management agencies in Canada is to protect human life and property. Here we investigate if decades of aggressive fire suppression in the boreal biome of Canada has reduced the proportion of recently burned forests (RBF; <30 years) near human communities, and thereby inadvertently increased the risk of wildfire. We measured the percentage of RBF, which are usually less flammable than older forests, up to a 25-km radius around communities compared to that in the surrounding regional fire regime zone. Our analysis of 160 communities across boreal Canada shows that 54.4% exhibited a deficit or lack of RBF, whereas only 15.0% showed a surplus. Overall, a majority (74.4%) of communities are surrounded by a low (≤10%) proportion of RBF, indicating a higher vulnerability of those communities to wildfire. These findings suggest that suppression policies are increasing flammability in the wildland–urban interface of boreal Canada. A primary element of modern wildfire management is to aggressively suppress small fires before they become large, but benefits can be offset by the fact that these practices promote older forests that are more ‘flammable’. Here the authors show that this downside puts numerous human communities at elevated risk of fires in boreal Canada.
Bibliografia:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23
ISSN:	2041-1723 2041-1723
DOI:	10.1038/s41467-020-15961-y