The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth

Bowman, David M. J. S.; Balch, Jennifer K.; Artaxo, Paulo; Bond, William J.; Cochrane, Mark A.; D’Antonio, Carla M.; DeFries, Ruth; Johnston, Fay H.; Keeley, Jon E.; Krawchuk, Meg A.; Kull, Christian A.; Mack, Michelle C.; Moritz, Max A.; Pyne, Stephen J.; Roos, Christopher I.; Scott, Andrew C.; Sodhi, Navjot S.; Swetnam, Thomas W.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02595.x

Cited by 951 publications

(825 citation statements)

References 111 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

743

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We suggest a parallel focus on collective behaviour at the community level, which is where there is great potential for innovation and adaptation [27,36,37]. Likewise, there is no shortage of recent efforts to develop a 'bigger picture' of wildfire dynamics and management in various countries or at a global level [4,5,42]. More rarely are these efforts locally grounded in systematic approaches for understanding and comparing the diverse set of populations who will 'live with fire' in very different ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

Carroll

Paveglio

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One contribution of 24 to a discussion meeting issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'. One of the immediate challenges of wildfire management concerns threats to human safety and property in residential areas adjacent to non-cultivated vegetation. One approach for relieving this problem is to increase human community 'adaptiveness' to deal with the risk and reality of fire in a variety of landscapes. The challenge in creating 'fire-adapted communities' (FACs) is the great diversity in character and make-up of populations at risk from wildfire. This paper outlines a recently developed categorization scheme for WildlandUrban Interface (WUI) communities based on a larger conceptual approach for understanding how social diversity is likely to influence the creation of FACs. The WUI categorization scheme situates four community archetypes on a continuum that recognizes dynamic change in human community functioning. We use results from the WUI classification scheme to outline key characteristics associated with each archetype and results from recent case studies to demonstrate the diversity across WUI communities. Differences among key characteristics of local social context will likely result in the need for different adaptation strategies to wildfire. While the WUI archetypes described here may not be broadly applicable to other parts of the world, we argue that the conceptual approach and strategies for systematically documenting local influences on wildfire adaptation have potential for broad application.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

Carroll

Paveglio

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While no studies on smoke exposure from traditional indigenous landscape burning exist, the smaller mosaic of patch burning promotes small lowintensity fires [55,56], which overall produce relatively lower emissions, due to the smaller spatial size and lower fuel loads under such fire regimes [54]. The cessation of indigenous burning, active fire suppression, introduced species, and a warming climate are all contributing to increasingly frequent, large-scale, intense fires in many flammable landscapes [6,54,57]. Emissions from large landscape fires can be transported for long distances affecting large and small population centres far from the fires themselves [58].…”

Section: (A) Landscape Firesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The subsequent evolution of hominins, the only know life form that can start fires, has shaped the global patterns of fire [3][4][5]. Fire has been described as a 'near-universal catalyst for most of our exchanges with the world around us, from technology to land use' [6]. It has shaped human physiologies and societies, including settlement patterns, food production, technology, mining, transport and communications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shift from biomass to fossil fuels to power economies is often used to define the start of the Industrial Revolution, and was termed the 'pyric transition' by Pyne [8]. Fire activity on the Earth can be conceptualized in terms of four key phases comprising: (i) natural fire regimes that preceded hominin evolution; (ii) hunter-gatherer fire regimes; (iii) agricultural fire regimes; and (iv) industrial fire regimes [6]. It is important to note that this model does not promote a developmental ladder of cultural 'evolution'; rather it acknowledges that all phases, apart from the pre-hominin, currently coexist on the Earth [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The pyrohealth transition: how combustion emissions have shaped health through human history

Johnston

Melody

Bowman

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Air pollution from landscape fires, domestic fires and fossil fuel combustion is recognized as the single most important global environmental risk factor for human mortality and is associated with a global burden of disease almost as large as that of tobacco smoking. The shift from a reliance on biomass to fossil fuels for powering economies, broadly described as the pyric transition, frames key patterns in human fire usage and landscape fire activity. These have produced distinct patters of human exposure to air pollution associated with the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions and post-industrial the Earth global system-wide changes increasingly known as the Anthropocene. Changes in patterns of human fertility, mortality and morbidity associated with economic development have been previously described in terms of demographic, epidemiological and nutrition transitions, yet these frameworks have not explicitly considered the direct consequences of combustion emissions for human health. To address this gap, we propose a pyrohealth transition and use data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) collaboration to compare direct mortality impacts of emissions from landscape fires, domestic fires, fossil fuel combustion and the global epidemic of tobacco smoking. Improving human health and reducing the environmental impacts on the Earth system will require a considerable reduction in biomass and fossil fuel combustion. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.

show abstract

“…Wildfires are a recurring natural hazard in south eastern Australia, as in many regions globally (Bowman et al 2011). There have been several events causing significant loss of life and property in Australia in recent decades (McAneney et al 2009;Cruz et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical wildfire risk analysis: the probability of a fire spreading to the urban interface in Sydney, Australia

Price¹,

Borah²,

Bradstock³

et al. 2015

Int. J. Wildland Fire

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present a method and case study to predict and map the likelihood of wildfires spreading to the urban interface through statistical analysis of past fire patterns using 15 000 lines from 677 fires with known ignition points and date and random potential end points on the urban interface of Sydney, Australia. A binomial regression approach was used to model whether the fire burnt to the end point of the lines as a function of measures of distance, fuel, weather and barriers to spread. Fire weather had the strongest influence on burning likelihood followed by the percentage of the line that was forested, distance and time since last fire. Fuel treatments would substantially reduce risk from fires starting 1-4 km away from the interface. The model captured 90% of variation in burning with 98% predictive accuracy on test data and was not affected by spatial autocorrelation. We apply the method to map fire risk in Sydney and discuss how the method could be expanded to estimate total risk (from ignition to impact on assets). The method has considerable promise for predicting risk, especially as a complement to simulation methods. AbstractWe present a method and case study to predict and map the likelihood of wildfires spreading to the urban interface through statistical analysis of past fire patterns using 15,000 lines from 677 fires with known ignition points and date and random potential end points on the urban interface of Sydney, Australia. A binomial regression approach was used to model whether the fire burnt to the end point of the lines as a function of measures of distance, fuel, weather and barriers to spread. Fire weather had the strongest influence on burning likelihood followed by the percentage of the line that was forested, distance and time since last fire. Fuel treatments would substantially reduce risk from fires starting 1 -4 km away from the interface. The model captured 90% of variation in burning with 98% predictive accuracy on test data and was not affected by spatial autocorrelation. We apply the method to map fire risk in Sydney and discuss how the method could be expanded to estimate total risk (from ignition to impact on assets). The method has considerable promise for predicting risk, especially as a compliment to simulation methods.

show abstract

The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth

Cited by 951 publications

References 111 publications

Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

The pyrohealth transition: how combustion emissions have shaped health through human history

An empirical wildfire risk analysis: the probability of a fire spreading to the urban interface in Sydney, Australia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About