Major 1992 Forest Fires in Central and Eastern Siberia: Satellite and Fire Danger Measurements

Abstract

The boreal forest biome is a classic fire-dependent ecosystem, capable, during periods of extreme fire weather, of sustaining the large, high-intensity wildfires responsible for its existence. The natural fire cycle in the North American boreal forest averages 50-200 years (Heinselman 1981). Fire is the major disturbance regime in the boreal forest, and tree species have adapted to this form of disturbance over millennia, to the point where fire is required for adequate regeneration. With increased human settlement of the world’s boreal zone over the last century, for both industrial and recreational purposes, there has been a concurrent development of fire management programs designed to protect human interests and forest investment. However, total fire exclusion has proven neither economically feasible nor ecologically desirable, with the result that fires are still a major force in the boreal forests of North America and Eurasia, burning over an average of 5–6 million hectares annually during the 1980s (Stocks 1991). In addition, climate change projections indicate significantly higher temperatures across the world’s boreal zone within the next 50 years, and forest fire occurrence and impacts would increase significantly under this scenario (Stocks 1993), potentially providing significant positive feedback to global warming, and greatly influencing the carbon budget of the boreal forest zone.