En-en adult card 35 forest fires
Card #35: Forest Fires
| Causes | Consequences | |
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No direct consequences. |
Forest fires start more easily during droughts and heat waves.
Other possible links
Causes
Deforestation: Part of the deforestation is done by burning the forest, which can then degenerate into uncontrolled fire. This is what happened in the summer of 2019 in the Amazon and Australia.
To go further
Mega Fire
A Mega-fire is an extraordinary fire starting very large fires that devastate a very large area, without this appellation corresponding to a very precise scientific definition. We usually speak of a mega fire when the affected area is at least 1,000 to 10,000 hectares. Mega-fires account for only 3% of all fires, yet represent 50% of global losses[1]. 96% of the last 500 mega-fires in the last 10 years took place during a period of abnormally high heat and/or drought[2].
Examples of events
In 2018, in California, 1,975,086 acres (799,200 hectares, about the size of Corsica) were burned, for a total of 8,000 fires and 100 casualties, but the burned area doubled in 2020 to reach 1,635,300 hectares (larger than Ile-De-France: the greater Paris area)[3].
In the 2019-2020 season, Australia saw a total area of 17 million hectares go up in smoke[4]. This surface area represents a third of France.
Forest fires on Mount Kilimanjaro on the rise[5].
Forest fires on the rise in Portugal and Greece[6]
Article(s)
Fire the Earth, on the mega-fires (French)
References
- ↑ Joelle Zask, When the Forest Burns: Thinking about the New Ecological Disaster (French)
- ↑ United Nations Are "megafires" the new standard? (French)
- ↑ 2020 Fire Season, Cal Fire
- ↑ Government set to revise total number of hectares destroyed during bushfire season to 17 million
- ↑ AR5 WG2 IPCC, low confidence, major contribution from climate change
- ↑ AR5 WG2 IPCC, low confidence, major contribution from climate change