Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent “scale of gravity” to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE.

[1]  M. Long,et al.  A climatology of extreme fire weather days in Victoria , 2006 .

[2]  Mark A. Adams,et al.  Mega-fires, inquiries and politics in the eucalypt forests of Victoria, south-eastern Australia , 2013 .

[3]  D. Bowman,et al.  Cause and effects of a megafire in sedge-heathland in the Tasmanian temperate wilderness. , 2016 .

[4]  Cristina Santín,et al.  Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world , 2016, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[5]  Ricardo Costa,et al.  Space-time clustering analysis performance of an aggregated dataset: The case of wildfires in Portugal , 2015, Environ. Model. Softw..

[6]  M. Adams,et al.  Mega-fires, tipping points and ecosystem services: Managing forests and woodlands in an uncertain future , 2013 .

[7]  N. Guiomar,et al.  Bottom-Up Variables Govern Large-Fire Size in Portugal , 2016, Ecosystems.

[8]  A. Gill,et al.  Landscape Fire, Biodiversity Decline and a Rapidly Changing Milieu: A Microcosm of Global Issues in an Australian Biodiversity Hotspot , 2014 .

[9]  T. Sisk,et al.  Mapping the probability of large fire occurrence in northern Arizona, USA , 2006, Landscape Ecology.

[10]  Paulo M. Fernandes,et al.  A review of prescribed burning effectiveness in fire hazard reduction , 2003 .

[11]  Aaron M. Petty,et al.  Linking humans and fire: a proposal for a transdisciplinary fire ecology , 2012 .

[12]  R. Neil Sampson,et al.  Mapping Wildfire Hazards and Risks , 2000 .

[13]  W. Mccaw,et al.  Scale‐dependent thresholds in the dominant controls of wildfire size in semi‐arid southwest Australia , 2014 .

[14]  Carol Miller,et al.  How will climate change affect wildland fire severity in the western US? , 2016 .

[15]  Bruce Shindler,et al.  Trust, acceptance, and citizen–agency interactions after large fires: influences on planning processes , 2010 .

[16]  M. Salis,et al.  Large wildland fires and extreme temperatures in Sardinia (Italy) , 2014 .

[17]  Andrew J. Bannister,et al.  Anatomy of a catastrophic wildfire: The Black Saturday Kilmore East fire in Victoria, Australia , 2012 .

[18]  Aaron M. Sparks,et al.  Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial and ancillary metrics , 2013 .

[19]  Miguel G. Cruz,et al.  A guide to rate of fire spread models for Australian vegetation , 2017 .

[20]  Rick McRae,et al.  A Conceptual Framework for Assessing the Risk Posed by Extreme Bushfires , 2011 .

[21]  C Johnson,et al.  Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction , 2011 .

[22]  Russian Federation,et al.  FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FROM A COARSE-SCALE GLOBAL ASSESSMENT OF RECENT SELECTED MEGA-FIRES , 2011 .

[24]  Christopher Lucas,et al.  Prediction of the probability of large fires in the Sydney region of south-eastern Australia using fire weather , 2009 .

[25]  E. Johnson,et al.  Forest fire behavior , 1992 .

[26]  A. Ito.  Mega fire emissions in Siberia: potential supply of bioavailable iron from forests to the ocean , 2011 .

[27]  A STUDY OF MASS FIRES AND CONFLAGRATIONS , 1963 .

[28]  D. Paton,et al.  Ensuring That We Can See the Wood and the Trees: Growing the Capacity for Ecological wildfire Risk Management , 2015 .

[29]  Michael A. Crimmins,et al.  Synoptic climatology of extreme fire‐weather conditions across the southwest United States , 2006 .

[30]  Mike D. Flannigan,et al.  Potential climate change impacts on fire intensity and key wildfire suppression thresholds in Canada , 2017 .

[31]  M. Cruz,et al.  Modeling the initiation and spread of crown fires , 1999 .

[32]  J. Sharples,et al.  Assessing mitigation of the risk from extreme wildfires using MODIS hotspot data , 2015 .

[33]  P. White,et al.  Environmental drivers of large, infrequent wildfires: the emerging conceptual model , 2007 .

[34]  Martin J. Wooster,et al.  Direct estimation of Byram’s fire intensity from infrared remote sensing imagery , 2017 .

[35]  A. Gill,et al.  Landscape fires as social disasters: An overview of ‘the bushfire problem’ , 2005 .

[36]  David L. Martell,et al.  Characterizing extreme fire and weather events in the Boreal Shield ecozone of Ontario , 2005 .

[37]  Domingos Xavier Viegas,et al.  A Mathematical Model For Forest Fires Blowup , 2004 .

[38]  M. Bell,et al.  A systematic review of the physical health impacts from non-occupational exposure to wildfire smoke. , 2015, Environmental research.

[39]  Joe H. Scott,et al.  Standard Fire Behavior Fuel Models: A Comprehensive Set for Use with Rothermel?s Surface Fire Spread Model , 2015 .

[40]  Jason P. Evans,et al.  Natural hazards in Australia: extreme bushfire , 2016, Climatic Change.

[41]  J. Keeley.  Fire intensity, fire severity and burn severity: a brief review and suggested usage , 2009 .

[42]  Philip N. Omi,et al.  Effect of thinning and prescribed burning on crown fire severity in ponderosa pine forests , 2002 .

[43]  David Johnston,et al.  Recovery and Development: Perspectives from New Zealand and Australia , 2014 .

[44]  Ross A. Bradstock,et al.  Large fires and their ecological consequences: introduction to the special issue , 2008 .

[45]  Mark A. Finney,et al.  Synthesis of knowledge of extreme fire behavior : volume I for fire managers / , 2011 .

[46]  S. Cutter,et al.  Forging a paradigm shift in disaster science , 2017, Natural Hazards.

[47]  Yuh-Lang Lin,et al.  Synoptic-Scale and Mesoscale Environments Conducive to Forest Fires during the October 2003 Extreme Fire Event in Southern California , 2007 .

[48]  R. Morss.  PROBLEM DEFINITION IN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE PUBLIC POLICY The Example of Observing-System Design for Weather Prediction , 2005 .

[49]  A. Gill,et al.  Large fires, fire effects and the fire-regime concept , 2008 .

[50]  H. Mooney,et al.  Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems , 1997, Renewable Energy.

[51]  Seasonal reversal of the influence of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on very large wildfire occurrence in the interior northwestern United States , 2015 .

[52]  Shannon K. Orr,et al.  The Influence of Problem Definitions on Environmental Policy Change: A Comparative Study of the Yellowstone Wildfires , 2013 .

[53]  Mário G. Pereira,et al.  Evolution of forest fires in Portugal: from spatio-temporal point events to smoothed density maps , 2017, Natural Hazards.

[54]  Philip Cunningham,et al.  Severe convective storms initiated by intense wildfires: Numerical simulations of pyro‐convection and pyro‐tornadogenesis , 2009 .

[55]  Piermaria Corona,et al.  Geospatial analysis of woodland fire occurrence and recurrence in Italy , 2017 .

[56]  Domingos Xavier Viegas,et al.  Eruptive Behaviour of Forest Fires , 2011 .

[57]  Y. Tesfaigzi,et al.  Wildfire smoke exposure and human health: Significant gaps in research for a growing public health issue. , 2017, Environmental toxicology and pharmacology.

[58]  Duncan C. Thomas,et al.  Health consequences of forest fires in Indonesia , 2004, Demography.

[59]  Paul Arbon,et al.  Defining disaster: The need for harmonisation of terminology , 2015 .

[60]  Tonja S. Opperman,et al.  LANDFIRE - A national vegetation/fuels data base for use in fuels treatment, restoration, and suppression planning , 2013 .

[61]  J. W. Wagtendonk,et al.  Fire Frequency, Area Burned, and Severity: A Quantitative Approach to Defining a Normal Fire Year , 2011 .

[62]  Alexander C. McFarlane,et al.  Definitions and Concepts in Disaster Research. , 2006 .

[63]  Matthew P. Thompson,et al.  How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[64]  Juli G. Pausas,et al.  Are wildfires a disaster in the Mediterranean basin? – A review , 2008 .

[65]  Bret W. Butler,et al.  Firefighter Safety Zones: A Theoretical Model Based on Radiative Heating , 1998 .

[66]  D. Viegas,et al.  Study of the jump fire produced by the interaction of two oblique fire fronts. Part 1. Analytical model and validation with no-slope laboratory experiments , 2012 .

[67]  Lawrence Tagg.  Services , 1987, Veterinary Record.

[68]  R. Rothermel,et al.  Predicting Behavior and Size of Crown Fires in the Northern Rocky Mountains , 2018 .

[69]  N. Cheney,et al.  Quantifying bushfires , 1990 .

[70]  Hannah Brenkert-Smith,et al.  Understanding social impact from wildfires: advancing means for assessment , 2015 .

[71]  N. Lareau,et al.  Environmental controls on pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus initiation and development , 2015 .

[72]  M. E. Alexander,et al.  Interdependencies between flame length and fireline intensity in predicting crown fire initiation and crown scorch height , 2012 .

[73]  Martin E. Alexander,et al.  Calculating and interpreting forest fire intensities , 1982 .

[74]  Gianluca Pescaroli,et al.  A definition of cascading disasters and cascading effects: Going beyond the “toppling dominos” metaphor , 2015 .

[75]  R. Rothermel,et al.  How to Predict the Spread and Intensity of Forest and Range Fires , 2017 .

[76]  D. Roy,et al.  Exploiting the power law distribution properties of satellite fire radiative power retrievals: A method to estimate fire radiative energy and biomass burned from sparse satellite observations , 2011 .

[77]  Richard J. Williams,et al.  Large fires in Australian alpine landscapes: their part in the historical fire regime and their impacts on alpine biodiversity , 2008 .

[78]  Patricia L. Andrews,et al.  Fire behavior associated with the 1994 South Canyon fire on Storm King Mountain, Colorado , 1998 .

[79]  Jay D. Miller,et al.  Quantifying burn severity in a heterogeneous landscape with a relative version of the delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) , 2007 .

[80]  Susan L. Cutter,et al.  The Changing Context of Hazard Extremes: Events, Impacts, and Consequences , 2016 .

[81]  A. C. Cruz,et al.  Forest management : technology, practices and impact , 2012 .

[82]  J. Balbi,et al.  Generalized Blaze Flash, a “Flashover” Behavior for Forest Fires—Analysis from the Firefighter’s Point of View , 2014 .

[83]  Marj Tonini,et al.  Space-time clustering analysis of wildfires: The influence of dataset characteristics, fire prevention policy decisions, weather and climate. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[84]  T. Swetnam,et al.  THE WILDFIRES OF 1910 Climatology of an Extreme Early Twentieth-Century Event and Comparison with More Recent Extremes , 2013 .

[85]  D. V. Sandberg,et al.  Assessing the effects of fire disturbances on ecosystems: A scientific agenda for research and management , 1999 .

[86]  David J. Strauss,et al.  Do One Percent of the Forest Fires Cause Ninety-Nine Percent of the Damage? , 1989, Forest Science.

[87]  B. Potter,et al.  Convection and downbursts , 2017 .

[88]  W. Platt,et al.  Seasonality of Fire Weather Strongly Influences Fire Regimes in South Florida Savanna-Grassland Landscapes , 2015, PloS one.

[89]  W. Bond,et al.  Fire as a global 'herbivore': the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems. , 2005, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[90]  David T. Butry,et al.  What Is the Price of Catastrophic Wildfire? , 2001, Journal of Forestry.

[91]  Ioannis Mitsopoulos,et al.  Impact of drought on wildland fires in Greece: implications of climatic change? , 2011 .

[92]  Matthew B. Dickinson,et al.  Radiant flux density, energy density and fuel consumption in mixed-oak forest surface fires , 2012 .

[93]  Jerry Williams,et al.  Exploring the onset of high-impact mega-fires through a forest land management prism , 2013 .

[94]  Mark Noonan,et al.  The post-fire measurement of fire severity and intensity in the Christmas 2001 Sydney wildfires , 2004 .

[95]  Sarah Harris,et al.  The relationship between fire behaviour measures and community loss: an exploratory analysis for developing a bushfire severity scale , 2012, Natural Hazards.

[96]  Jonathan Martin,et al.  The Spotting Distribution of Wildfires , 2016 .

[97]  Narasimhan K. Larkin,et al.  Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous United States , 2015 .

[98]  Donald McKenzie,et al.  Toward a Theory of Landscape Fire , 2011 .

[99]  David L. Martell,et al.  A Review of Initial Attack Fire Crew Productivity and Effectiveness , 1996 .

[100]  Mark A. Finney,et al.  Synthesis of knowledge of extreme fire behavior: volume 2 for fire behavior specialists, researchers, and meteorologists , 2016 .

[101]  Sarah McCaffrey,et al.  Wildfires: international perspectives on their social-ecological implications , 2015 .

[102]  Miguel Almeida,et al.  Fire whirls in forest fires: An experimental analysis , 2017 .

[103]  Enrico L Quarantelli,et al.  Social Aspects of Disasters and Their Relevance to Pre-Disaster Planning , 1977 .

[104]  S. Pyne.  Problems, paradoxes, paradigms: triangulating fire research , 2007 .

[105]  E. Quarantelli,et al.  Response to Social Crisis and Disaster , 1977 .

[106]  Scott L. Goodrick,et al.  Review of Vortices in Wildland Fire , 2011 .

[107]  A. Cardil,et al.  Trends in adverse weather patterns and large wildland fires in Aragón (NE Spain) from 1978 to 2010 , 2013 .

[108]  G. M. Byram.  Atmospheric Conditions Related to Blowup Fires , 2017 .

[109]  N. Lareau,et al.  Cold Smoke: smoke-induced density currents cause unexpected smoke transport near large wildfires , 2015 .

[110]  David S. Pilliod,et al.  Tongue-tied: Confused meanings for common fire terminology can lead to fuels mismanagement , 2004 .

[111]  A. Edwards,et al.  Big fires and their ecological impacts in Australian savannas: size and frequency matters , 2008 .

[112]  Max A. Moritz,et al.  ANALYZING EXTREME DISTURBANCE EVENTS: FIRE IN LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST , 1997 .

[113]  J. Abatzoglou,et al.  Modeling very large-fire occurrences over the continental United States from weather and climate forcing , 2014 .

[114]  Giorgos Mallinis,et al.  A data-driven approach to assess large fire size generation in Greece , 2017, Natural Hazards.

[115]  Albert Alvarez,et al.  Extreme Fire Severity Patterns in Topographic, Convective and Wind-Driven Historical Wildfires of Mediterranean Pine Forests , 2014, PloS one.

[116]  J. Abatzoglou,et al.  Human exposure and sensitivity to globally extreme wildfire events , 2017, Nature Ecology &Evolution.

[117]  Ana C. L. Sá,et al.  Regional-scale burnt area mapping in Southern Europe using NOAA-AVHRR 1 km data , 1999 .

[118]  Domingos Xavier Viegas,et al.  Parametric study of an eruptive fire behaviour model , 2006 .

[119]  I. McCallum,et al.  Impact of wildfire in Russia between 1998–2010 on ecosystems and the global carbon budget , 2011 .