Understanding climate change impacts on wildfires
This year’s spring fire season in North Carolina is well underway with dozens of brush fires reported in Western North Carolina over the last several weeks. One such wildfire in Jackson County even threatened homes near the town of Sylva before fire crews contained it.
It may not just be a coincidence that the occurrence of wildfires appears to be on the rise. Earlier this month the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report outlining how climate change could, among other things, lead to increased wildfires around the globe. Increased frequency and larger wildfire events have significant implications for air quality, public safety and infrastructure. Wildfire trends for the Southeastern U.S. are uncertain, but expected population and wildland-urban interface growth is likely to present the region with significant wildfire challenges.
While there have always been forest fires and there is no certainty that the rash of wildfires this spring in WNC is directly correlated to climate change, there is a growing need to better understand the connection between climate change impacts on wildfires and forest resources.
Researchers and scientists at the UNC Institute for the Environment are assisting the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, in assessing the likely frequency and location of wildfires in the Southeast over the next several decades. The work is in partnership with the Forest Service’s Southern Research Station, which is headquartered in Asheville. The station is composed of more than 120 scientists, working in research facilities spread across the Southeast, whose mission is “to create the science and technology needed to sustain and enhance Southern forest ecosystems and the benefits they provide.” One of the station’s responsibilities is to study resource management issues and project wildfire occurrence in 13 Southeastern states over the next 50 years.
The long-term forecasting of wildfires is being conducted through the use of computer models that can project future scenarios. The work of modeling wildfire frequency and intensity is challenging because of the inherent unpredictably of wildfires as well as the uncertainties related to changes in vegetation and fuel loads. Making the task even more difficult is the fact that global climate change models do not take into account regional differences and unique weather factors, such as precipitation patterns in the Southeast.
To address this challenge, scientists are using global climate models and “downscaling” those models to obtain a more precise projection of climate change impacts at finer geographic scales. Downscaling allows for the use of regionally detailed information in climate models and, consequently, adds value and accuracy in regional climate change projections. As a result of these projections, natural resource and land managers at the Forest Service throughout the Southeast will have a clearer picture of the future outlook for wildfires and their potential adverse impacts to help guide them in their management and planning decisions.
By all accounts Southern forests are expected to undergo significant changes in the coming years — including the forests in WNC. Population growth will impact supplies of clean drinking water and aquatic habitats, threaten endangered species, and increase the wildland-urban interface. This urbanization will make the consequences of increasingly severe wildfires a substantial threat to private property and public safety.
The scientific work underway to better understand the climate change impacts on wildfires enhances the ability of natural resource managers to make better decisions. The innovative research on wildfire projections in the face of a changing climate will also have long-term benefits for the public by increasing public safety and reducing the risk to private property.
Uma Shankar is a research scientist with the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute for the Environment www.ie.unc.edu