Grass Fires Research Articles

High-Resolution Daily Emission Inventory of Biomass Burning in the Amur-Heilong River Basin Based on MODIS Fire Radiative Energy Data

Open biomass burning (OBB) is one of the major factors that influences the regional climate environment and surface vegetation landscape, and it significantly affects the regional carbon cycle process and atmospheric environment. The Amur-Heilong River Basin (ARB) is a fire-prone region in high-latitude boreal forests. In this study, we used fire radiative power (FRP) obtained from a Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to estimate OBB emissions from the ARB and established a long-term series (2003–2020) with a high spatiotemporal resolution and a daily 1 km emissions inventory. The results show that the annual average emissions of CO2, CO, CH4, NMHCs, NOx, NH3, SO2, BC, OC, PM2.5, and PM10 were estimated to be 153.57, 6.16, 0.21, 0.78, 0.28, 0.08, 0.06, 0.04, 0.39, 0.66, and 0.85 Tg/a, respectively. Taking CO2 as an example, grassland fire in the dry season (mainly in April and October) was the largest contributor (87.18 Tg/a), accounting for 56.77% of the total CO2 emissions from the ARB, followed by forest fire prone to occur in April–May (56.53 Tg/a, 36.81%) and crop fire during harvest season (9.86 Tg/a, 6.42%). Among the three countries in the ARB, Russia released the most total CO2 emissions (2227.04 Tg), much higher than those of China (338.41 Tg) and Mongolia (198.83 Tg). The major fire types were crop fires (40.73%) on the Chinese side and grass fires on the Russian (56.67%) and Mongolian (97.56%) sides. Over the past decade, OBB CO2 emissions have trended downward (−0.79 Tg/a) but crop burning has increased significantly (+0.81 Tg/a). Up to 83.7% of crop fires occurred in China (2010–2020), with a concentrated and southward trend. Comparisons with the Global Fire Emission Dataset (GFED4.1s), the Fire INventory from NCAR (FINNv2.2), and the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFASv1.2) showed that our newly established emission inventory was in good agreement with these three datasets in the ARB. However, this multi-year, daily 1 km high-resolution emission inventory has the advantages of detecting more small fire emissions that were overlooked by coarse-grid datasets. The methods described here can be used as an effective means of estimating greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions from biomass combustion.

The Performance of ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System for European Extreme Fires: Portugal/Monchique in 2018

At the beginning of August 2018, Portugal experienced a severe heat episode over a few days that consequently increased the probability of wildfire events. Due to the advection of an anomalous very hot and dry air mass, severe fire-prone meteorological conditions were forecasted mainly over southern Portugal, in the Monchique region. Together with the significant fuel amount accumulated since the last extreme wildfire in August 2003, all the unfavorable conditions were set to drive a severe fire over this region. The Monchique fire started on 3 August 2018, being very hard to suppress and lasting for seven days, with a burnt area of 27,000 ha. Regarding the need to have operational early warning tools, this work aims to evaluate the reliability of fire probabilistic products, up to 72 h ahead, together with the use of fire radiative power products, as support tools in fire monitoring and resource activities. To accomplish this goal, we used the fire probabilistic products of the Ensemble Prediction System, provided by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. Among available fire danger rating systems, the Fire Weather Index and the Fine Fuels Moisture Code of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System were selected to assess the meteorological fire danger. The assessment of the fire intensity was based on the Fire Radiative Energy released, considering the Fire Radiative Power, delivered in near real-time, by EUMETSAT Land Surface Analysis Satellite Applications Facility. The exceptional fire danger over southern Portugal that favors the ignition of the Monchique fire and its severity was essential driven by two important factors: (i) the anomalous fire weather danger, before and during the event; (ii) the accumulated fuel amount, since the last severe event occurred in 2003, over the region. Results show that the selected fire probabilistic products described the meteorological fire danger observed well, and the LSA-SAF products revealed the huge amount of fire energy emitted, in line with the difficulties faced by authorities to suppress the Monchique fire.

Impact of climate change on catchment nutrient dynamics: insights from around the world

This study is a meta-analysis of global articles on hydrological nutrient dynamics to determine trends and consensus on: (1) the effects of climate change-induced hydrological and temperature drivers on nutrient dynamics and how these effects vary along the catchment continuum from land to river to lake; (2) the convergence of climate change impacts with other anthropogenic pressures (agriculture, urbanization) in nutrient dynamics; and (3) regional variability in the effects of climate change on nutrient dynamics and water-quality impairment across different climate zones. An innovative web crawler tool was employed to help critically synthesize the information in the literature. The literature suggests that climate change will impact nutrient dynamics around the globe and exacerbate contemporary water-quality challenges. Nutrient leaching and overland flow transport are projected to increase globally, promoted by extreme precipitation. Seasonal variations in streamflow are expected to emulate changing precipitation patterns, but the specific local impacts of climate change on hydrology and nutrient dynamics will vary both seasonally and regionally. Plant activity may reduce some of this load in nonagricultural soils if the expected increase in plant uptake of nutrients prompted by increased temperatures can compensate for greater nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) mineralization, N deposition, and leaching rates. High-temperature forest and grass fires may help reduce mineralization and microbial turnover by altering N speciation via the pyrolysis of organic matter. In agricultural areas that are at higher risk of erosion, extreme precipitation will exacerbate existing water-quality issues, and greater plant nutrient uptake may lead to an increase in fertilizer use. Future urban expansion will amplify these effects. Higher ambient temperatures will promote harmful cyanobacterial blooms by enhancing thermal stratification, increasing nutrient load into streams and lakes from extreme precipitation events, decreasing summer flow and thus baseflow dilution capacity, and increasing water and nutrient residence times during increasingly frequent droughts. Land management decisions must consider the nuanced regional and seasonal changes identified in this review (realized and predicted). Such knowledge is critical to increasing international cooperation and accelerating action toward the United Nations’s global sustainability goals and the specific objectives of the Conference of Parties (COP) 26.

Unravelling the effect of climate change on fire danger and fire behaviour in the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve of Meseta Ibérica (Portugal-Spain)

The impacts of wildfires are increasing in the Mediterranean Basin due to more extreme fire seasons featuring increasingly fast and high-intensity fires, which often overwhelm the response capacity of fire suppression forces. Fire behaviour is expected to become even more severe due to climate change. In this study, we quantified the effect of climate change on fire danger (components of the Canadian FWI System) and wildfire behaviour characteristics (rate of spread and fireline intensity) for the four major Mediterranean forest ecosystems located in the Transboundary Biosphere Reserve of Meseta Ibérica under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The effect of climate change on wildfire behaviour was supplemented by taking into account net primary production (NPP), hence fuel load. Our results show that the meteorological fire season will start earlier and end later, leading to a significant increase in the number of days with weather conditions that promote high-intensity wildfires, for both climate scenarios. Fuel type shapes how wildfire spread characteristics will unfold. The most relevant changes are projected to occur in pine forests, where a wildfire with median fireline intensity will offer serious resistance to control from spring to autumn. The severity of fire behaviour in shrublands also increases substantially when considering climate change, with high-intensity wildfires potentially occurring in any time of the year. Both deciduous and evergreen broadleaf forests are predicted to typically generate wildfires with low enough intensity to remain within suppression capability. By adjusting fuel load to future climate conditions, our results highlight that fireline intensity in deciduous and evergreen broadleaf forests may not increase during summer, and can even be significantly reduced in shrublands. This study suggests that improved fire planning and management of wildfire-prone landscapes will counteract the effect of climate change on fire behaviour and impacts.

Multi-objective scheduling of priority-based rescue vehicles to extinguish forest fires using a multi-objective discrete gravitational search algorithm

The implementation of emergency scheduling of priority-based rescue vehicles for extinguishing forest fires is a complex optimization problem facing with many challenges and difficulties to optimize the operational costs and to improve the efficiency to make robust decisions. The main challenges are to minimize the number of fire engines while minimizing firefighting time and firefighting delay time, simultaneously. The main difficulties to make these decisions are to consider the severity of each fire point with regards to the limited resources of vehicles. Hence, this paper motivates to develop a new multi-objective scheduling model for extinguishing the fire of forests considering rescue priority with the limited rescue resources. To make an efficient and robust solution for the proposed problem, another novelty is to propose a hybrid optimization algorithm which is a modified discrete gravitational search algorithm. To confirm the applicability of the proposed problem, an actual forest fire emergency scheduling in Heilongjiang Province, China, is simulated. The proposed hybrid optimization algorithm is tested to check the feasibility the Pareto solutions and it is compared with a set of well-known and recent algorithms to show its efficiency. Finally, after a comprehensive discussion, the results prove that this work provides an accurate and effective tool for performing the emergency scheduling for extinguishing the forest fire.

WHEN IS A VELDFIRE NOT A VELDFIRE? Gouda Boerdery Bk v Transnet 2005 5 SA 490 (SCA)

How does one identify the land on which a veldfire starts? Most people would answer that it would be the land on which the fire originated. This is not really stating anything different from the question, which could lead one to conclude that the answer is self-evident. According to the Supreme Court of Appeal, however, the land on which a veldfire starts is not the land on which a veldfire starts, if the fire is not a veldfire when it is on that land. This suggests, certainly in the context of the National Veld Fire and Forest FireAct 101 of 1998, that the answer to the question posed at the top of this paragraph is not so self-evident after all. The case of Gouda Boerdery Bk v Transnet (2005 5 SA 490 (SCA)) is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is the first reported case in which application of section 34 of the National Veld Fire and Forest Fire Act 101 of 1998 (hereinafter “the Act”) is considered. Second, the Court’s interpretation and application of the section are, in my opinion, wrong (as can be surmised from my introductory comments).

Optimization of Fire Station Locations to Increase the Efficiency of Firefighting in Natural Ecosystems

Wild fires have a catastrophic impact on the environment and lead to people’s deaths. Such fires are relevant in the global context. Many countries declare some of their territories an ecological disaster zone during fires in natural ecosystems (USA, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy, Australia). Fires in ecosystems occurred in southern Ukraine in 2007 and in the eastern part of Ukraine in 2021, which destroyed large tracts of pine, as well as homes, buildings and caused human casualties. In the given research, much attention is paid to fire-prevention measures in natural ecosystems. It is proposed to optimize fire stations in the territory of Male Polissya (Ukraine), where frequent grass fires and grassland forest fires occur, since existing fire stations are not able to respond to all fires in the region in a timely manner due to the lack of forces and resources. Optimization of fire station locations was carried out using Voronoi diagrams. This research has a practical aspect, ensuring the protection of human health and life by preventing destructive fires in natural ecosystems through the creation of local safety facilities. On the example of 3 administrative districts of Lviv Oblast in Ukraine, it was established that in order to respond quickly to fires in ecosystems, it is necessary to create 20 additional fire stations, which has been determined by the 20-minute drive method approved by the state authorities. The algorithm proposed in this work can be applied to rural areas in other administrative units, both in Ukraine and other countries. The next step in the development of this technique is to determine the required amount of equipment and human resources for firefighting in ecosystems taking into account the projected dynamics of fires and the time required for the delivery of fire extinguishers to epicenters of these events.

The influence of bioclimatic and topographic variables on grassland fire occurrence within an urbanized landscape

Unplanned veldfires (or wildfires) characterize vegetation landscapes and offer a range of ecological benefits that promote, among others, the health of the grasslands and other fire-adapted ecosystems. However, in urbanized areas, uncontroled fires are often a threat to property, life, the environment, and economy. The eThekwini Municipal area, a global biodiversity hot-spot experiences frequent unplanned veld fires that threatens the valuable remnant grasslands. This necessitates an understanding of key drivers to fire occurrence as a first step towards the remnant grasslands sustainability. In this study, the probability of fire occurrence within the study area was determined using the Near Real-Time (NRT) MODIS Collection 6 Active Fire Data, topographic and bioclimatic variables within the Maximum Entropy (Maxent) environment. The predictor variables were assessed using jackknife analysis, percentage contribution, and Area Under Curve (AUC). The results showed that the mean temperature of the coldest quarter (33%), isothermality (12.3%), elevation (8.9%), and precipitation of the warmest month (8.8%) were the most influential predictor variables affecting fire occurrence within the study area. The Area Under Curve (AUC) values for training and test data-sets were 0.728 and 0.716 respectively, indicating good accuracy for the fire occurrence probability modeling. The study concludes that the Maxent modeling algorithm is suitable for determining fire occurrence and identifying key topographic and bioclimatic fire drivers within an urban landscape. These results are valuable in informing the protection and conservation of urban ecological systems, useful for the provision of urban ecosystem goods and services.

A Matter of Timing: Rudy Tanzi on Alzheimer's Disease

A Matter of Timing: Rudy Tanzi on Alzheimer's Disease

Understanding the Causes, Socio-Economic and Environmental Impacts of 2019 Veld Fires in the Kingdom of Eswatini

Veld fires have become a frequent and devastating phenomenon in the predominantly savanna ecosystems of the Kingdom of Eswatini. While fire damages have become more common and recurrent in recent years, their causes and impacts in the country are less understood, with extremely limited literature. This study aimed at filling up this existing information gap by investigating the causes, socio-economic and environmental impacts of veld fires, as well as highlighting the challenges and/or limitations in fire management and control in Eswatini. It used mixed methods approach to collect both primary and secondary data. These included household questionnaires and face-to-face interviews with key informants. The results showed that the major causes of fires are mainly anthropogenic, and these include arson and conflicts, controlled burning, ignorance of proper fire management practices, collision of electric cables, and acts of negligence, among others. Major impacts of veld fires in Eswatini were found to include disruption of rural (and urban) livelihoods, infrastructure damage, social and psychological wellbeing of affected individuals, loss of biodiversity and destruction of important environmental resources, to mention but a few. The study concluded that fires contribute to biodiversity loss and that fires continue to be a major treat to the country’s economy. Lack of fire management resources is one contributing factor to the widespread fire damage in the country, while quantifying the direct economic loss resulting from fire remains a challenge due to lack of standardized fire damages data collection and reporting tools. The study recommended a development of a standardized tool for reporting fire damages, improvement of fire prevention and management, and development of an early warning system (in addition to capacity assessment of fire emergency operators) to improve fire management and to minimize fire-related damages nationally.

环境介质中左旋葡聚糖记录与植被火燃烧变化研究进展

<p indent="0mm">Vegetation fire, also called biomass burning, wildfire, landscape fire, bushfire, forest fire, scrub fire, crop residue burning, peat bog fire, savanna fire and grass fire, are spontaneous combustion of plants in a natural setting. Vegetation fires began soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants in the Silurian about 420 million years ago. The regime of vegetation fire has varied with long-term changes in global climate and shorter-term regional changes in climate and vegetation since then, and human beings have altered fire activity since the mid-Holocene, especially in recent years. Vegetation fire affects vegetation distribution, ecological structure, biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles, geophysical processes, and the climate system at local to global scales. Vegetation fire is one of the largest sources of trace gases and aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere. It contributes more than half of black carbon and about 80% of primary organic aerosol worldwide. Besides, smoke aerosol from vegetation fire is composed of hundreds of chemical components, and many of which (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) are known to be harmful to human health. Fire smoke causes more than 600000 premature deaths annually worldwide. Therefore, understanding the spatial-temporal changes of vegetation fire is of great importance. Using some specific biomarkers for tracing changes and emissions of vegetation fire has become a research focus in recent years. Among various chemical components, anhydro-sugars are mainly emitted by pyrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose when burning temperature exceeds 300°C, whereas the contribution of fossil fuel emissions seems to be negligible. Levoglucosan accounts for more than 90% of anhydro-sugars in the nature. Levoglucosan has been reported with a lifetime longer than ten days under most atmospheric conditions, and thus could be transported far from the fire sources. The annual total levoglucosan emission is estimated at about 3.8 Tg (million ton) per year worldwide, however, when atmospheric degradation is considered, the atmospheric budget of levoglucosan is only about 1.9 Gg (kiloton) as calculated by the GEOS-Chem global 3-D chemical transport model. Eventually, levoglucosan is scavenged out the atmosphere to be deposited on earth surfaces by precipitation or gravitational processes. Its presence has been detected in various environmental medias including atmospheric aerosols, precipitation, lake/sea water, snowfall, glacier snow/ice, lake/marine sediments. High levoglucosan concentration/flux is usually found in middle and low latitudes where intense fire sources are nearby. In comparison, extreme low concentration/flux are found on highmountains, polar regions and marine sites where levoglucosan can only arrive by long distance transportation. Levoglucosan has been widely used as a biomarker for tracing fire emissions ranging from event to glacial-inter glacial timescales. For example, levoglucosan has been detected in lake sediments older than 430 ka years before present under anoxic environmental conditions. This work summarized the recent progress of levoglucosan records and vegetation fire changes in various environmental media. Levoglucosan in atmospheric aerosols can reflect fire emissions from event to seasonal scales, and levoglucosan records in glacial ice and lake/marine sediments can reveal fire evolution from seasonal to glacial-interglacial timescales. Overall, the current knowledge supports that levoglucosan should be an ideal biomarker for tracing vegetation fire changes on Earth’s surface. However, more evidences are needed in the near future to better understand its stability, interpret its records in ice core and sediments, as well as its relation with other proxies.

Recent Advances in the Biological Control of Tecoma stans L. (Bignoniaceae) in South Africa

Tecoma stans (L.) Juss ex Kunth var. stans (Bignoniaceae) is an invasive shrub or small tree from Central America that continues to extend its range in all nine provinces of South Africa and in neighbouring countries. The weed has been a target for biological control (biocontrol) in South Africa since 2003. The gall-forming rust fungus Prospodium transformans (Ellis & Everh.) Cummins (Pucciniales: Uropyxidaceae) was released in 2010, but failed to establish. Two leaf-feeding agents, Mada polluta (Mulsant) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Pseudonapomyza sp. Hendel (Diptera: Agromyzidae), were subsequently released in South Africa in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Mada polluta has become established at seven sites in the low elevation coastal regions of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, but not in high elevation inland areas. The leaf-mining Pseudonapomyza sp. has established at seven sites in four provinces, namely the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, but at low population densities. The deliberate destruction of release sites by landowners and inadvertent veld fires have confounded the establishment and proliferation of both agents, as well as progress on their post-release evaluation. A root-feeding flea beetle Heikertingerella sp. Csiki (Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae), initially collected in Mexico in 2007, was determined to be host specific and potentially effective as a new biocontrol agent of T. stans. An application for the release of Heikertingerella sp. in South Africa will shortly be submitted to the regulatory authorities. Additional mass-rearing and releases of the two established agents will be undertaken to improve their establishment and impact.

STRATEGI ADAPTASI MASYARAKAT DESA HUTAN RAWA GAMBUT PASCA KEBAKARAN HUTAN DAN LAHAN DI KALIMANTAN SELATAN

The fire of forest and land especially in forest swamp forest have cause changes in the environment biophysical significant the impact on the occurrence of changes in the environment social. Changes in the environment biophysical and environmental social as the impact of the change over to the area of forest swamp peat has been encouraging people to do the adaptation so that they still exist as individuals and as a community to sustain life ( existence ) and improved its well-being life ( welfare ). Based on the background behind it then needs to do research. From the results of the interim research, it was found that there were various adaptation patterns of the community in adapting to peat swamp forest after fires, including adaptation of land use and adaptation of job diversification outside of work based on forest and peat swamp land use.

Climate change impacts and effects on health system: A challenge towards achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3 in South Africa

The aim of this paper is to present climate change health related effects that may pose a challenge for South Africa to attain South Africa’s plans to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 3. It examined South Africa’s preparedness to address the impacts of climate change in order to best achieve SDGs 3. Climate change is a challenging phenomenon, which has seen many people around the world being affected by its effects unaware and unprepared. Climate change affects weather patterns, for instance rainfall patterns and temperatures. Consequently, this resulted in draughts, floods, diseases, veld fires, high temperatures, changing times of floods occurrences and depleted water resources in Africa and the rest of the world. This has placed human life in danger. Considering the increasing burden of diseases, the United Nations (UN) adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address of poverty, hunger disease and want by 2030. However, climate change threatens the ability of countries to achieve this by the anticipated time. The researchers conducted an extensive content analysis by interrogating various sources of literatures sources that include journal articles, thesis, academic books, and documents written by the government of South Africa. The study reveals that that climate related deaths will increase between 2030 and 2050 due to these health impacts of climate change. The study reveals that South Africa, like many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa faces threat of vector borne diseases, mental health, malnutrition, and diarrheal, and other disease resulting from water scarcity and heat waves. This comes because of high prevalence of drought, floods, and increased temperatures. The study recommends early awareness and new communication strategies for the promotion of mental health, heat education campaign and prevention of vector borne diseases.&#x0D;

Using permanent forest plots to evaluate the resilience to fire of Tasmania’s tall wet eucalypt forests

The vulnerability to repeated high severity fires of tall wet eucalypt forests (TWEF) dominated by obligate seeder species is widely understood. However, 80% of Tasmania’s TWEF are dominated by resprouter species, and while these forests are more resilient to wildfire than those dominated by obligate seeders, the degree of their resilience is not well documented. Recently, two wildfires affected five 1-ha forest plots that had been previously measured, providing the opportunity to assess fire effects on these forest stands. We characterised these wildfires using remote sensing and field measurements of char height (a proxy for fire intensity) and canopy scorch (fire severity). We assessed the influence of tree diameter, fire intensity and seedling densities on the survival and resprouting responses of eucalypt overstorey trees and mixed species understorey trees. Our results showed that these fires were predominantly of low to moderate intensity and severity. Our results showed that mature TWEF were resilient to these wildfires, with overall eucalypt survival of 75%. The major eucalypt species were either mostly not defoliated (E. regnans), or could recover rapidly by epicormic resprouting (E. delegatensis and E. obliqua). Results from this and other studies show recovery from topkill caused by high severity fires occurs but is slower, by basal resprouting (E. obliqua) or from seed (all species). By contrast, understorey species suffered high mortality (85% overall), with few species showing substantial resprouting. Fire resistance in both groups increased markedly with tree diameter.Our results have implications for forest management. The high survival of overstorey eucalypts leads to a multi-aged stand structure in most unlogged old growth TWEF in Tasmania. On the other hand, clearfell logging, originally designed to mimic stand replacing wildfire in obligate seeder systems, creates a vulnerable, even aged stand of young regrowth, and at a landscape scale, it also reduces average tree size, reducing overall resistance to fire. Adopting alternatives to clearfelling, such as partial logging systems, will increase landscape resilience to fire, as well as providing other previously shown benefits.

Protected Area Downsizing; Challenges and Ecological Implications on Large Mammal and Biodiversity Conservation in Chirisa Safari Area (CSA)

Protected area (PA) downsizing has been documented worldwide, but associated challenges on biodiversity and large mammal conservation in Chirisa Safari Area (CSA) are poorly understood. This study assesses the challenges associated with CSA downsizing on large mammals and biodiversity conservation. Field observations and face-to-face interviews were done with park management of CSA and SWRI from the 28th May 2021 to 10th June 2021. Analysis of station records on illegal activities, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) reports and land cover changes from 2010 to 2020 was also done. Poaching, encroachment by local people and veld fires, habitat fragmentation and HWC were sighted as major threats to large mammal biodiversity conservation in CSA. Analysed land cover and land use changes show evidence of the expansion of cultivation land and human settlements into areas that previously served as wildlife habitats. These changes have implications on large mammal and biodiversity conservation in CSA related to species migration, population decline, habitat loss and conflicts. We recommend that further research be undertaken in other areas affected by downsizing in Zimbabwe to aid knowledge in explaining its effect on large mammals and biodiversity conservation in adjacent PAs.

The human–grass–fire cycle: how people and invasives co‐occur to drive fire regimes

Invasive grass species can alter fire regimes, converting native terrestrial ecosystems into non‐native, grass‐dominated landscapes, creating a self‐reinforcing cycle of increasing fire activity and flammable grass expansion. Analyses of this phenomenon tend to focus on the ecology and geography of the grass–fire cycle independent of human activities. Yet people introduce non‐native grasses to new landscapes (eg via agriculture), facilitate their spread (eg via road networks), and are a primary source of ignition (eg via debris burning). We propose a new framework for this phenomenon that explicitly recognizes the important role of anthropogenic activities in the human–grass–fire cycle. We review links between land use and invasive species as well as ignitions, with a particular focus on the spatial and temporal co‐occurrences of these activities to show that these two drivers of wildfires are inextricable. Finally, management strategies that could mitigate impacts are discussed.

Fire foci in South America: Impact and causes, fire hazard and future scenarios

Fire is used in the management of pastures, renewal and expansion of areas, and agricultural activities in South America (SA). The objectives of this study were: i) to identify the countries and regions with the highest number of fire foci in SA, and ii) to evaluate the spatial dynamics of fire foci based on the Meteorological Fire Danger Index (MFDI) and future scenarios through numerical simulations. Fire foci time series comprised 21 years (1998–2018) from the BDQueimadas database. Cluster Analysis (CA), descriptive and exploratory statistics were employed. Fire foci maps for SA were made in 10-km pixel dimensions. MFDI was used to assess fire danger via SPEEDY (Simplified Parametrizations, primitivE-Equation DYnamics) model simulations. Three simulations were performed: control scenario (1980–2015), RCP2.6 scenario (optimistic - 2016 and 2050), and RCP8.5 scenario (pessimistic - 2015 and 2050). Regionally, three homogeneous groups of fire foci (G1, G2 and G3) and one atypical (NA - Not Grouped) were identified for Brazil via CA. The highest fire foci occurred in Brazil (62.72%), followed by Bolivia (9.03%), Argentina (8.28%), Venezuela (6.11%), Paraguay (5.94%), and Colombia (3.87%), respectively. The highest density of fire foci occurred in the MATOPIBA region, the confluence of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia, - (agricultural frontier), and also in the Cerrado-Amazon transition and the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil, followed by Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Argentina. The countries and regions of Brazil do not change, only intensify from year to year, and such fire foci variability may be associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases. The control scenario identified in east-central Brazil, western Bolivia, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. The optimistic scenario showed an improvement in some countries and a worsening in the territorial distribution in Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. The pessimistic scenario identified increased degradation compared to the previous scenarios in almost all SA countries.

Integrated Mobile Veld Fire Detection and Alerting System for Rural Communities

Integrated Mobile Veld Fire Detection and Alerting System for Rural Communities

Analisis Kebakaran Hutan dan Lahan dalam Hubungannya dengan Alih Fungsi dan Pengunaan Lahan di Sekitar Desa Gandang Barat Kabupaten Pulang Pisau Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah

The policy of take over the function of land in Pulang Pisau Regency are to fulfill many purposes and in the corporation scale its to become increasing income of the regency from this sector. The exploitation of the areal that using the meters of plantation / agriculture / other function tend to make a change of the macro and micro waters, that is because of Pulang Pisau Regency is peatlands that very sensitive to the need of water absorption. Gandang Barat Village which is in district of Maliku, Pulang Pisau Regency, which is directly adjacent with areal of oil palm plantation, have more high vulnerability of the fire forest and land. The using of land in this village including residentials area about 132, 5 Ha and farming about 180 Ha, oil palm plantation and plasma about 312 Ha.The method of this research is descriptive method and the sampling using purposive sampling which is analysis data of vulnerability level of fire system or Fire Risk system and using SIDIK which give more valid data and information using the SIDIK.The result of the identification of determination of cause of fire forest and land which connection between takeover function of land and using of land in society are: fire of land and forest which occurs in 2015 (with special analysis and observation fields) are occurs because of the opening land to prepare of plant oil plantations. There is about ± 284 Ha have been burns in fire. The motivation of conversion the land from agriculture / rice fields to become oil palm plantation with tiny scale more of because of the condition of the land in 2015 are bush and galam plants which about ± 284 Ha. The recommendation of decreasing fire forest and land are to determine the activity of opening land for plantation without burning the land (PLTB) which is to allocated the tools and help for opening the land and giving the production for diversify agre culture and technical guidance to increasing the productivity of plantations, and giving help for diversify of economic society. One of them is giving grants and using Pijam equipment for land preparation from the agriculture agency; Therefore to increasing the power of society specialty of Gandang Barat Village or social institutions which is to empowering of social awareness of the people in Gandang Barat Village about the loss and the dangerous of fire forest and land and also to educate of the farmers in management of prevention about fire forest and land. One of them is the formation and strengthening of community groups who care about the fire of Gandang Barat Village. In areas prone to forest and land fires, infrastructure that is adaptive to forest and land disasters can be developed, such as in the village of Tumbang Nusa, a footbridge is built using precast Cor Benton so that in the season of forest and land fires, it can still survive. Thus we recommend to increasing of management data special series that contain of information about technology, alarm, early detection and the management of preparation to face the fire forest and land.