Active Fire Research Articles

Abstract. Biomass burning (BB) aerosol significantly affects climate by altering the radiation budget and atmospheric chemistry. Accurate source estimation is vital for climate modeling, yet global observations remain scarce. This study introduces a novel framework for assessing the contribution of transported BB aerosol to smoke-associated aerosol optical depth (BB AOD) at selected locations. The approach integrates satellite fire data (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Active Fire Product) with air parcel trajectory models (HYSPLIT), aerosol transport models (NAAPS), BB emissions (FLAMBE), and plume rise (CAMS GFAS). Tested in Warsaw (Poland, Central Europe) over 2006–2022, the methodology reveals a prominent influence of long-range BB aerosol transport from North America. Analysis indicates that USA (without Alaska) (37.3 %±3.4 %), Canada (25.4 %±6.7 %) and the Alaska (2.6 %±2.1 %) together contribute approximately 65 % of BB AOD during the BB season in the Northern Hemisphere, surpassing nearer European sources. Among European regions, Eastern Europe accounts for 16.6 %±5.3 % of BB AOD, followed by the Iberian Peninsula (10.6 %±1.5 %) and Southern Europe (7.5 %±2.1 %). Incorporating vertical plume dynamics is crucial: a planetary boundary layer plume-top threshold underestimates Canadian contribution while overestimating European sources, whereas removing altitude constraints overestimates Canadian influence. These findings underscore the importance of transatlantic transport, plume-rise processes, and vertical aerosol distribution in regional climatology. The presented framework for assessing BB AOD contributions is universal and can be applied at any location. Future work should incorporate the specific aerosol types emitted during BB events and their aging processes.

Active Fire Dynamics in Venezuela

Remote sensing of wildland fires has become an integral part of fire science. Airborne sensors provide high spatial resolution and can provide high temporal resolution, enabling fire behavior monitoring at fine scales. Fire agencies frequently use airborne long-wave infrared (LWIR) imagery for fire monitoring and to aid in operational decision-making. While tactical remote sensing systems may differ from scientific instruments, our objective is to illustrate that operational support data has the capacity to aid scientific fire behavior studies and to facilitate the data analysis. We present an image processing algorithm that automatically delineates active fire edges in tactical LWIR orthomosaics. Several thresholding and edge detection methodologies were investigated and combined into a new algorithm. Our proposed method was tested on tactical LWIR imagery acquired during several fires in California in 2020 and compared to manually annotated mosaics. Jaccard index values ranged from 0.725 to 0.928. The semi-automated algorithm successfully extracted active fire edges over a wide range of image complexity. These results contribute to the integration of infrared fire observations captured during firefighting operations into scientific studies of fire spread and support landscape-scale fire behavior modeling efforts.

ABSTRACT Forest fires play a critical role in determining the ecological and vegetation dynamics of Central India’s deciduous forests. This study evaluates the impact of forest fire on plant diversity in a forest of Central India. Forest fire frequency was assessed using multi-temporal Landsat imagery (Landsat 5, 7, and 8) and validated with MODIS active fire products (MOD14/MYD14). The Phytosociological data were collected through field surveys in the Hoshangabad Forest Division, Madhya Pradesh, India. The results indicate that low fire frequency zones (LFZ) exhibit the highest species diversity and evenness, whereas high fire frequency zones (HFZ) show the lowest, suggesting fire plays a significant role in influencing forest composition. The moderate fire frequency zone (MFZ) shows an intermediate diversity pattern, supporting the intermediate disturbance hypothesis. Frequent fires in HFZ reduce species richness by favoring fire-resistant species such as Diospyros melanoxylon, which dominates across all fire zones, with the highest Importance Value Index (IVI) in HFZ (62.18). Tree density trends reveal that while HFZ has a slightly higher average density than non-fire zones, the reduced diversity suggests a shift toward homogeneous structure. The findings highlight the need for adaptive fire management strategies to balance biodiversity conservation in fire-prone landscapes. Focusing on the tropical dry deciduous forests of Central India, this study underscores the importance of region-specific and forest type-specific assessments, which are essential for developing fire management and biodiversity conservation strategies. This regional perspective not only adds significant value to India’s forest management discourse but also provides critical insights for forest policy and ecological restoration in dry deciduous landscapes, where recurrent fires strongly influence species diversity, forest structure, and regeneration patterns.

Remotely sensed data have been instrumental in improving our understanding of the nature of fires within tropical landscapes. However, most studies have depicted fires in a negative light, highlighting how land-use and land-cover changes make forests more vulnerable to fire damage. In contrast to such fires, indigenous peoples utilize fires as a key part of their livelihood practices, and such relationships have not been extensively examined using remotely sensed data. In this paper, we utilize MODIS Active Fire data to examine the spatial and temporal distribution of fires relative to indigenous lands across Guyana. We employed the DBSCAN clustering algorithm and Voronoi polygons to examine the patterns of fire distribution across the Guyanese landscape. We found that while indigenous territories accounted for approximately 15% of Guyana’s terrestrial landscape, 25% of fires occurred within Amerindian lands, and 71% within 16 km of village boundaries. A strong linear distance decay (R2 = 0.97) was observed between the occurrence of fires and Amerindian village boundaries. Four previously undefined fire regions emerged for Guyana–Coastal, Forest, Forest Edge North, and Forest Edge South–with the Forest Edge regions hosting the second highest number of fires but the highest indigenous peoples’ presence. The spatial distribution of fires relative to each region suggested that Forest Edge indigenous villages had a strong reliance on fires as a part of their toolkit for maintaining the rich ecological processes characteristically observed around their lands.

Abstract Background Timely information on wildfire burn severity is critical to assess and mitigate potential post-fire impacts on soils, vegetation, and hillslope stability. Tracking individual fire spread and intensity using satellite active fire data provides a pathway to near real-time (NRT) information. Here, we generated a large database (n = 2177) of wildfire events in the western United States (U.S.) between 2012 and 2021 using active fire detections from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite and the Fire Events Data Suite (FEDS) algorithm to track large fire growth every 12 h. We integrated fire tracking data with final fire perimeters and burn severity data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program to evaluate the relationship between burn severity and fire behavior metrics derived from the fire tracking approach, including the rate of fire spread and average fire radiative power (FRP) of fire detections for each 12-h growth increment. Results When stratified by vegetation type, FRP and rate of spread metrics were positively correlated with classified burn severity for each 12-h growth increment, highlighting the potential to rapidly identify areas of high and low severity burning. In forests, integrated measures of FRP over the fire lifetime captured persistent flaming and smoldering that compensated for initial differences between AM (01:30) and PM (13:30) fire detections. Predictive modeling of these relationships based on multiple fire behavior indicators and vegetation type from the LANDFIRE program yielded an accuracy of 78% for the separation of unburned/low and moderate/high burn severity classes. Conclusions These results demonstrate the ability to capture within-fire differences in burn severity using NRT indicators from fire tracking to assist with emergency management and disaster preparedness for post-fire hazards, such as landslides, debris flows, or changes in stream flow and water quality. As VIIRS data are available within minutes of each satellite overpass in the U.S., rapid estimates of burn severity based on fire tracking can be made days or weeks before a large wildfire is fully contained.

The article investigates the fundamental principles of designing hotel buildings with particular regard to fire safety, in compliance with the current regulatory framework of Ukraine. It underlines the growing significance of fire protection in the hospitality sector, conditioned by the expansion of the tourism industry, the increasing complexity of hotel infrastructure, and the elevated fire load associated with intensive occupancy and modern engineering systems. The necessity of adopting a systematic and interdisciplinary approach, which integrates architectural, technical, and organizational measures to safeguard the lives and health of residents and personnel, is substantiated. A critical analysis is provided of recurrent deficiencies observed at both the design and operational stages of hotel facilities. These include the misplacement or insufficient number of evacuation exits, inadequacies in smoke extraction systems, the use of outdated or malfunctioning equipment, as well as the limited preparedness of staff to respond effectively in emergencies. Particular attention is devoted to the evaluation of architectural and planning solutions, the careful selection of building materials in terms of fire resistance, and the integration of active and passive fire protection systems. Considerable emphasis is also placed on the role of smoke-free stairwells, internal water supply systems, and other constructive measures aimed at enabling safe evacuation in conditions of elevated risk. The article presents generalized tables that consolidate baseline fire safety requirements alongside typical design and operational errors. These materials are intended to serve as practical reference tools for architects, engineers, and safety officers, facilitating a more accurate assessment of compliance and highlighting priority areas for correction. Moreover, prospective directions for further research are outlined, among them the implementation of adaptive evacuation management systems, the application of intelligent technologies for early fire detection and suppression, and the refinement of personnel training programs to improve professional readiness. The findings of the study possess both theoretical and applied value. They can be employed in the architectural and engineering design of hotel complexes, in the operational practice of fire safety services, and in the development of educational and training curricula for staff of temporary accommodation facilities. By combining a systematic review of shortcomings with evidence-based recommendations, the article contributes to strengthening the framework of fire safety within the hospitality industry of Ukraine.

Electric wires are crucial components of power systems,playinga significant role in social production and daily life. However, theirwidespread use also introduces considerable fire risks characterizedby strong concealment, rapid burning, and significant difficulty inextinguishing. Existing fire extinguishing systems struggle to detectand dispose of initial fires promptly. This study presents the developmentof a Fire Extinguishing Polymer Composite (FEPC), designed for proactiveprevention and control of initial electric wire fires. Comprehensivecharacterization and testing were conducted to evaluate the protectiveeffects of FEPC on electric wires in thermal environments. A FirePropagation Apparatus (FPA) was employed to simulate the real-worldthermal conditions of electric wire combustion and fire propagation.The performance of FEPC was examined under varying conditions of radiantheat flux, ventilation flow, and layout methods. The findings indicatethat FEPC effectively delayed the time to ignition without exacerbatingthe overall thermal and toxic hazards, though it increased smoke hazardrisks. The efficiency of FEPC decreased with higher radiant heat flux,suggesting its optimal use in the initial stages of the fires. Whilethe quantity of FEPC used did not significantly impact its extinguishingefficiency, its placement did. Optimal results were achieved whenprotecting areas with limited wire quantities. Additionally, FEPCdemonstrated superior fire extinguishing efficiency in confined spacescompared to open environments. This research provides valuable technicalinsights for the active protection of wire initial fires.

Wildland fires are a common and destructive natural disaster in Alaska. Recent active fires in Alaska were assessed and analysed for their associated synoptic-scale climatic conditions in this study. Hotspot (HS) data from satellite observations over the past 20 years since 2004 (total number of HS = 300,988) were used to identify active fire-periods, and the occurrence of Rossby wave breaking (RWB) was examined using various weather maps. Analysis results show that there are 13 active fire-periods of which 7 active fire-periods are related to RWB. The total number of HSs during the seven RWB-related fire-periods was 164,422, indicating that about half (54.6%) of the recent fires in Alaska occurred under fire weather conditions related to RWB. During the RWB-related fire-periods, two hotspot peaks with different wind directions occurred. At the first hotspot peak, southwesterly wind blew from high-pressure systems in the Gulf of Alaska. In the second hotspot peak, the Beaufort Sea High (BSH) supplied strong easterly wind into Interior Alaska. It was suggested that changes in wind direction during active fire-period and continuously blowing winds from BSH may affect fire propagation. It is hoped that this study will stimulate further research into active fires related to RWBs in Alaska.

Pathways to achieving net‐zero and net‐negative greenhouse‐gas (GHG) emission targets rely on land‐based contributions to carbon (C) sequestration. However, projections of future contributions neglect to consider ecosystems, climate change, legacy impacts of continental‐scale fire exclusion, forest accretion and densification, and a century or more of management. These influences predispose western North American forests (wNAFs) to severe drought impacts, large and chronic outbreaks of insect pests, and increasingly large and severe wildfires. To realistically assess contributions of future terrestrial C sinks, we must quantify the amount and configuration of stored C in wNAFs, its vulnerability to severe disturbance and climatic changes, costs and net GHG impacts of feasible transitions to conditions that can tolerate active fire, and opportunities for redirecting thinning‐derived biomass to uses that retain harvested C while reducing emissions from alternate products. Failing to adopt this broader mindset, future forest contributions to emission targets will go up in smoke.

ABSTRACT Recent advances in land surface reflectance modelling and machine learning techniques opened new opportunities for deriving burned area at a near-real time (NRT) basis and globally. Built from these recent advances, this paper describes a new and computationally efficient approach used by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) to map burned area from Sentinel-3 OLCI&SLSTR reflectance data and VIIRS active fires at NRT within one day after each image acquisition, complemented by a non-time critical (NTC) product delivered several months after. A neural network is designed to predict fractional burned area on a per-pixel basis from time series of surface reflectance data. The neural network is used to generate time series of burned area detection maps, which are revised by active fire detections spatiotemporal densities to filter out areas likely to be related to land surface changes other than fires, such as agricultural practices or fast vegetation senescence. The algorithm was calibrated with data from 2019, and its quality was assessed with data from 2020, along with other global products, through an intercomparison analysis and a validation analysis using a stratified global random sampling of 30 m reference burned area data. The quality assessment included the NRT and NTC products presented here (CLMBA40nrt and CLMBA40ntc, respectively) and other global products available for 2020, the NTC product currently distributed by the CLMS (CLMBA31ntc), the MODIS-MCD64 Collection 6 (MCD64), the Sentinel-3 OLCI Climate Change Service C3SBA11 and the Sentinel-3 OLCI&SLSTR ESA’s Climate Change Initiative Fire Disturbance FIRECCIS311. The accuracies of CLMBA40ntc and CLMBA40nrt (Dice coefficient (DC) 65.0% and 56.5% respectively) are higher than CLMBA31ntc, MCD64 and C3SBA11 (DC ∼45%) and higher and similar, respectively, compared to FIRECCIS311 (DC 56.0%). The new algorithm described here allows for unprecedented accuracy and timeliness of global burned area estimates.

Fire accidents are a frequent and serious problem in Jammu and Kashmir, often resulting in loss of life and property. This study compares how well active and passive fire safety systems work in both homes and industrial buildings across the region. Data was collected using surveys (127 participants), site visits, and interviews with people involved in fire safety.The findings show that passive fire safety systems (like fire doors and escape paths) are not commonly used in many residential areas. Industrial buildings follow safety rules better due to strict checks by authorities. However, active systems (like alarms and fire extinguishers) are often not well-maintained in both sectors.This paper recommends combining both types of systems and improving awareness to make fire safety more effective and reduce risks in future.

Forest fires release toxic pollutants from burning vegetation, posing serious risks to human health. The Brazilian Pantanal-the world's largest continuous wetland-is currently experiencing severe wildfires. This situation may lead to a spike in hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. To assess the health impacts of these fires on local populations, we applied a generalized linear model incorporating geographic variables, including air quality and climate data. This approach allowed us to evaluate the relationship between active fire outbreaks and hospitalizations among residents of the Pantanal. Our results reveal a troubling pattern: an increase of 10 active fires is associated with a significant rise in daily hospitalizations. Over a 10-year period, the risk of respiratory hospitalizations rose by 23.2%, while cardiovascular hospitalizations increased by 22.3% for every 10 additional fires. These findings underscore the urgent need for preventive action. By forecasting the potential daily rise in hospital admissions, our study offers valuable insights to help Brazilian authorities implement fire mitigation strategies and strengthen the preparedness of the local healthcare system.

ABSTRACT A detailed, spatially explicit fire inventory is essential for improving our understanding of biomass burning and for supporting the formulation of targeted fire mitigation policies. However, such fire inventories remain limited, especially in tropical regions. Existing active fire (AF) products derived from low-resolution sensors (e.g. MODIS and VIIRS) generally have high omission errors (OE), especially when detecting small and relatively colder temperatures fires. While moderate-resolution sensors offer unprecedented opportunities for detecting small and subtle fires, they face the dilemma of high commission errors (CE). To address this problem, we propose an object-oriented method to effectively detect AFs from Sentinel-2 MSI images, which focuses on suppressing the interference of various CEs through object-level inter-spectral criteria cloud filtering, seamline exclusion based on granule footprints, and false positive refinement based on random forest classification model. Using more than 55,000 Sentinel-2 MSI images acquired during 2016–2021, we have compiled a novel 20 m fire inventory covering forests and peatlands in Borneo. Initial assessment of the fire inventory suggests a CE of approximately 7.2% and an OE of 11.5%. Analysis of the Borneo fire inventory revealed the following: (i) A significant concentration of AFs was observed in Kalimantan, with Central Kalimantan accounting for approximately 55.9% of all detected peatland fires in Borneo, and West Kalimantan contributing 33.7% of forest fires. (ii) Peatland fires dominated widespread fires in Borneo in 2019, with 1.4 to 2.6 times the size and 3.1 to 16 times the number compared to other years in 2016–2021. (iii) The MSI AF detections show slight differences in spatiotemporal patterns compared to MODIS and VIIRS AF products, which is attributed to variations in sensitivity to small fires. Our study clarifies the spatial dynamic distribution of AFs in Borneo, providing fundamental support for local fire monitoring, fire regime, and carbon emission research.

Abstract Smoke released from increasingly severe wildfires has exerted widening impacts on the climate, ecosystem, and human life. Precisely quantifying these effects requires accurately representing smoke injection height in climate and air quality models. However, existing parameterizations of smoke injection height often diverge from actual observations, commonly underestimating smoke injection height from extreme burnings. In this study, we improve a widely used smoke injection model by integrating two critical processes: aerosol radiative absorption and atmospheric convection. The new parameterization, optimized and validated by satellite measurements of smoke extinction profiles above active fires, achieves a 10% reduction in root mean square error and an over 95% reduction in mean bias compared to its predecessor. Such improvements are especially pronounced in tropical and shrubland‐dominated regions. This study underscores the critical role of aerosol self‐lofting and convective processes in vertical dispersion of wildfire smoke, toward better quantifying its climate and environmental effects.

Outcomes of assisted reproductive technology cycles following bushfire exposure: a retrospective cohort study.

Fires disrupt ecosystems, release carbon, and reduce carbon uptake, which increases atmospheric CO2 concentration, warms the atmosphere, and fosters more frequent and intense fires. Quantifying postfire recovery is crucial for understanding the adaptability and resilience of ecosystems to fire disturbances. Observations from satellite-derived active fire (~1-km) and Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) products reveal that Australia experiences extensive fires annually, reducing vegetation productivity. Here we analyze the post-fire GPP recovery trajectories of 1.7 × 106 fire-affected pixels (or 1.5 × 106 km2) in Australia between 2011 and 2019, of which 1.3 × 106 pixels (1.2 × 106 km2) experienced a single fire (single-fire pixels), and 0.4 × 106 pixels (0.3 × 106 km2) experienced two or more fires (multiple-fire pixels). We found that Australia's postfire GPP recovery was strong and rapid. 88% of single-fire pixels recovered to 135% of the prefire level in an average of 2.3 years, whereas 86% of multiple-fire pixels recovered to 115% of the prefire level in an average of 1.2 years. NonForest ecosystems (e.g., grasslands, shrublands, and savannas) exhibited a higher postfire recovery magnitude (138% for single-fire pixels and 115% for multiple-fire pixels) compared to Forest (110% for single-fire pixels and 108% for multiple-fire pixels). This rapid and robust postfire GPP recovery is significantly influenced by postfire precipitation, fire (i.e., fire frequency, intensity) and fire severity (damage, impacts; a metric of resistance of terrestrial ecosystems to fire). Specifically, higher fire severity and higher postfire precipitation have a positive impact on postfire recovery, whereas increased fire frequency has a negative impact. Furthermore, fire dynamics have a smaller role in the long-term interannual continental GPP changes than climate or land-use changes, as strong and rapid GPP recovery offsets the short-term fire-induced GPP losses.

BACKGROUND: Rapid changes in the nature of modern military conflicts and advanced technologies have a significant impact on combat tactics and medical evacuation. In the context of high-tech warfare with the predominant use of automated and robotic equipment, conventional methods of evacuating the injured are becoming increasingly unsafe and less effective. Recent local conflicts have identified the need to implement innovative solutions, such as unmanned evacuation platforms, which can significantly increase the efficiency and safety of medical evacuation, speed up the delivery of the injured, and mitigate the risk to the lives of both medical personnel and the injured under active hostile fire. Each new warfare generation will require military personnel to have a new level of training and advanced technologies, which makes it relevant to study and use unmanned recovery platforms in the training and best practices of units. The use of robotic equipment to evacuate the injured meets the requirements of modern combat and helps to increase the overall survivability of personnel, which is a critical factor in war. Thus, the development and integration of unmanned recovery platforms in the unit training is relevant both for reducing human losses and increasing the performance of combat missions in contemporary conditions. AIM: To substantiate approaches to teaching safe methods of evacuating the injured on the combat contact line. METHODS: The paper presents the literature data analysis and expert survey of military personnel. RESULTS: 100% of respondents that unmanned recovery platforms are relevant and effective evacuation equipment, allowing to neutralize the impact of threatening factors. CONCLUSIONS: The relevance of unmanned recovery platforms to solve medical evacuation problems is increasing due to the development of enemy fire suppression equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles, as evidenced by video footage of combat operations in public online sources and expert surveys.

Under the influence of factors such as climate and land use changes, it is highly useful to investigate the spatio-temporal occurrence characteristics of forest fires using remote sensing data. This study utilized long-term remote sensing data on Active Fire Spots (AFSs), Burned Areas (BA), and Land Cover Types (LCT) in Yunnan Province. Through pixelization of AFSs, spatial extraction, and spatio-temporal clustering, 39,101 Forest Fire Events (FFEs) were identified. The results indicate that FFEs in Yunnan Province exhibit spatio-temporal clustering, with an overall annual fluctuating decline trend. The clustering is more pronounced in spring and winter, with a delayed temporal span. Over 88% of FFEs are concentrated in southern Yunnan, and the frequent occurrence areas have shifted eastward in recent years. This study deepens the understanding of the spatio-temporal dynamics of forest fires and provides a basis for regional forest fire management to promote sustainable development in related fields.

A student hostel is an accommodation provided by educational institutions, offering shared living spaces for students. It needs to comply with building standards and safety features. Fire incidents in a student hostel can negatively impact students' futures. Tragic instances, such as the fire at the Madrasah Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah in 2017 and a similar incident in Georgetown, Guyana, highlighted the importance of these safety measures. Due to this, the Twelfth Malaysia Plan mandates measures to address outdated and unsafe buildings, particularly student hostels. Buildings constructed based on outdated standards may not meet current requirements. Therefore, this research aims to identify the design criteria of means of escape and to evaluate the changes in Uniform Building By-Law provisions regarding means of escape. A qualitative approach is used for data collection via evaluating archival documents and expert validation. The building standards compared are the Uniform Building By-Laws 1984 as of 2015 and Uniform Building By-Laws 1984 as of 2022. The collected data is analysed using content analysis that integrates passive and active fire protection by distinguishing the means of escape requirements prescribed in both building regulations. The analysis identified seven design criteria for safe escape routes: travel distance, door, exit, staircase, emergency lighting, communication, power system, signage, and fire-fighting requirements. This research provides valuable insights for designers and policymakers by highlighting regulatory changes such as newly added, removed, substituted, amended, and maintained prescriptive requirements. By shedding light on the motivations behind these changes, this research could impact future updates to building laws.