Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

Abstract

Recently, the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: a Second Notice was issued in response to ongoing and largely unabated environmental degradation due to anthropogenic activities. In the warning, humanity is urged to practice more environmentally sustainable alternatives to business as usual to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes. Following the success of their warning, the Alliance of World Scientists called for discipline-specific follow-up papers. This paper is an answer to that call for the topic of wildland fire. Across much of Canada and the world, wildfires are anticipated to increase in severity and frequency in response to anthropogenic activities. The world scientists’ second warning provides the opportunity for wildland fire researchers to raise the profile of the potential impacts that anthropogenic activities are likely to have on future fire regimes and, in return, what impacts future fire regimes may have on humanity. We discuss how wildfire is related to several issues of concern raised in the world scientists’ second warning, including climate change, human population growth, biodiversity and forests, and freshwater availability. Furthermore, we touch on the potential future health impacts and challenges to wildfire suppression and management in Canada. In essence, our wildfire scientists’ warning to humanity is that we, as a society, will have to learn to live with more fire on the landscape. We provide some recommendations on how we might move forward to prepare for and adapt to future wildfire regimes in Canada. Although this paper is primarily Canadian in focus, the concepts and information herein also draw from international examples and are of relevance globally.

Scientistsʼ Warning on Climate Change and Medicinal Plants

“…In the wake of this important publication, the Alliance of World Scientists encouraged the scientific community to continue the Scientistsʼ Warning campaign by preparing discipline-specific "Warning" papers highlighting the potential detrimental effects of climate change on specific aspects of environmental or human well-being. For example, the first Scientistsʼ Warning disciplinespecific papers included warnings regarding the risk of significant impacts on wetlands [3], microbial communities [4], and wildfire regimes [5]. In this Warning paper, we seek to call attention to the fact that around the world, human populationsʼ access to medicinal plants is likely to be threatened by climate change in addition to the perennial threats of direct anthropogenic habitat loss and overharvesting.…”

A review of machine learning applications in wildfire science and management

“…Wildland fires can result in significant impacts to humans, either directly through loss of life and destruction to communities or indirectly through smoke exposure. Moreover, as the climate warms, we are seeing increasing impacts from wildland fire (Coogan et al 2019). Consequently, billions of dollars are spent every year on fire management activities aimed at mitigating or preventing wildfires' negative effects.…”

Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission

“…Under climate change a substantial increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires is expected [ 34 , 35 ]. In particular, northern regions such as Canada are expected to see an increase of wildfire activity related to increases in conditions conducive to extreme wildfire weather [ 19 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ].…”