Unseasonably hot temperatures and dry conditions have fueled wildfires across much of Europe this summer. This is one of the highest wildfire seasons on record for the region, with over 700,000 hectares burned so far this year.

 

Dr Matthew Jones, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, says heatwaves and droughts are exacerbated by global warming, but other factors also contribute to these fire outbreaks. Without swift cuts in emissions, scientists expect wildfires and other climate impacts to worsen across Europe.

Climate change

 

Climate change has made heat waves, droughts and wildfires more frequent, intense and widespread. This is a result of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations over the past century.

 

Drought and hot temperatures can exacerbate fires, because they sap moisture from vegetation and turn it into dry fuel. They also push fires into regions that aren't used to them and make them more destructive, as they spread faster.

 

Scientists estimate that fire risk across Europe is increasing by as much as 14 per cent a year. That means that if the world doesn't start to cut its greenhouse gas emissions quickly, Europe could be hit by an average of six to seven fires a day in 2050.

 

These are the findings of a study published in Nature journal this month by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of California, Irvine. They found that the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in Europe have increased three-to-four times more than in other mid-latitude regions.

 

They suggest that this is a result of changes in the jet stream. These changes affect the way weather moves over the continent and can cause extreme heatwaves, such as those that hit Europe this summer.

 

Another factor that is likely to contribute to the rise in Europe's fire danger and activity is the increase in temperature and decrease in the amount of summer rain. These changes are already occurring in Europe, as shown by satellite data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

 

The authors say these changes are expected to cause a substantial increase in fire risk in southern Europe and the Iberian peninsula over the coming decades. This would be especially significant if drought conditions were to become more common in southern Europe.

 

The results of the study are important because they highlight the need for fire danger and fire activity projections to consider both climate and fire drivers in future scenarios. The authors also highlight the importance of incorporating fuel load/continuity and a specific response to live fuel dryness into models, since these aspects have been reported to have a direct impact on fire weather (Fannigan et al. 2014).

Ignition sources

 

Europe is in the grip of a record-breaking heatwave and wildfires are raging across the Mediterranean. Those blazes have swept through Portugal and Greece and posed a serious threat to life and property, with Europe facing its second-worst forest fire season on record after 2017.

 

Climate change has made heatwaves more frequent and hotter in the region, causing forests to burn more often, says Copernicus senior scientist Mark Parrington. It also saps moisture from vegetation, turning it into dry fuel that makes fires more ferocious.

 

Most of the large-scale fires in the country are due to human activities, such as barbeques, smoking and camping. Lightning also plays a major role in the ignition of fires in rural areas. In urban and populated regions, the number of lightning-caused fires peaks in the afternoon, while in remote, rural areas, lightning is mainly a problem during summer.

 

Although there is no precise definition of what ignites fires, a broad range of factors can cause them, including weather, fuels and topography (see Table 1). The most important drivers of fire ignition are climate, soil properties, fuel composition and prevailing weather conditions in both human and non-human-driving environments.

 

In Europe, there are two main types of fires: surface fires and crown fires. The former occur in forests and plantations.

 

However, in many countries and especially in the Mediterranean, there is a growing concern over an increase in wildfires caused by both climate change and land use changes. As a result, the European Union is working on a wide range of systems to better understand the emergence and spread of these fires, fight them more effectively while they are burning, and monitor the effects after the flames have been brought under control.

 

While a significant amount of data is available for the occurrence of wildfires in Europe, many gaps exist in our understanding of how these fires happen. This lack of knowledge leads to an incomplete understanding of the potential impact of climatic and environmental factors on fire occurrence, which is essential for effective fire prevention policies.

 

For example, models used for estimating the risk of a fire based on a climate-fire index such as the fire danger index or the maximum daily Nesterov index tend to overestimate the peak fire activity and to underestimate the interannual variations. Moreover, they neglect the complex and often overlooked fire-fuel processes. These processes are essentially influenced by a combination of weather, soil conditions, fire danger and the fuel composition, which can change dramatically with changing climate.

Preparation

 

Europe's forests and other natural areas are undergoing a rapid transformation. They are becoming increasingly fire-prone, requiring more preparation for their management.

 

Preparation is a key element for limiting the impact of wildfires on the environment and economy, both at the national and EU level. It includes developing mutual aid arrangements, enhancing the availability of equipment and developing training and exercises that will help firefighters to respond more effectively when needed.

 

It also includes improving the coordination of blazes within the EU and between member states. This is done through a range of European systems and networks, from the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in Brussels to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which monitors forest fires in near real time and supports wildfire management at both the national and regional level.

 

The European Union has a large fleet of firefighting aircraft, which are strategically positioned across the continent to assist with fire fighting efforts. These have already been in use during this year's peak season and will likely be needed again in 2022, when temperatures are predicted to be hotter than average.

 

Aside from the need to prepare for blazes, firefighters also need to know how to deal with the effects of fires on the environment, such as smoke. In many cases, firefighters are able to reduce this by controlling the amount of fuel they release into the air, but it is still necessary to have a good understanding of the fire ecology and how it interacts with the landscape.

 

Moreover, reducing the load of dead fuel in forests and increasing their diversity will increase their resilience to wildfires. Creating mosaic landscapes with different ecosystems and habitats will also help create fire breaks, which can reduce the spread of wildfires and the damage they cause.

 

In addition, increasing awareness of the dangers of wildfires and promoting Firewise communities>> is important. This will help people to understand what they should do to protect themselves and their property during a fire.

 

Furthermore, it is essential to better align policies on land use and forest management with wildfire policies. This means, for instance, avoiding vegetation encroachment around assets, such as livestock grazing and agriculture. It is also necessary to promote efficient tools to reduce the biomass of fuels, such as prescribed burning.

Response

 

The first half of this summer was a whirlwind for the European Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in Brussels. In just eight days, four member states -- France, Italy, Slovenia and Spain -- requested EU assistance to battle devastating blazes.

 

The ERCC's mission this year has been to support firefighting efforts in Europe and other countries outside the EU that are facing wildfires. It is coordinating the dispatch of planes and helicopters to help combat the blazes.

 

In France, aircraft have been dumping water over fires for a week now. Firefighters have fought to put the flames under control in areas across the country, including the Gironde region and the city of Toulouse.

 

Scientists warn that climate change is causing the summer to be longer and drier, which in turn increases the risk of more fires. They have called for European authorities to increase fire-mitigation strategies, such as increasing the number of controlled-burning activities and introducing fire breaks into the landscape. wildfire

 

They have also urged governments to better monitor wildfires, and enforce stricter regulations for land use and forest activity.

 

The summer of 2022 was the hottest in Europe's history, and that has led to record-breaking wildfires. The blazes have burned a record land area and stoked carbon emissions, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said Tuesday.

 

Climate change is a huge threat to Europe's forests and soils, which are critical for providing ecosystem services such as oxygen production and water storage. It has a negative impact on the health of forests, which can be reduced by implementing measures such as improving firefighting capabilities and developing greater mutual aid practices.

 

Moreover, climate change is driving the risk of more frequent wildfires and expanding the area where they can occur. That is why the EU has increased its fleet of shared firefighting aircraft to prepare for emergencies that overwhelm local firefighting capacity.

 

It is crucial to improve post-fire mitigation in order to reduce additional impacts from wildfires in the first year of a burned area, and to achieve a reduction in the amount of erosion to the background level by the fourth year. However, this work suggests that there are still significant challenges towards the implementation of post-fire mitigation within the EU, with some actions not fully preventing additional erosion in the first year and not resulting in a significant recovery increase in the following years.