Understanding Brazil’s catastrophic fires: Causes, consequences and policy needed to prevent future tragedies

Pivello, Vânia Regina; Vieira, Ima Célia Guimarães; Christianini, Alexander V.; Ribeiro, Danilo Bandini; Menezes, Luciana da Silva; Berlinck, Christian Niel; Melo, Felipe P. L.; Marengo, José A.; Tornquist, Carlos Gustavo; Tomás, Walfrido Moraes; Overbeck, Gerhard E.

doi:10.1016/j.pecon.2021.06.005

Cited by 164 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 178 publications

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“…Our findings reveal that PB in both IT contributed to (i) the average rise of BA and SN from management season and the decrease from extremes wildfires season; (ii) lower-intensity and smaller-extension extreme wildfires; (iii) lower emissions during extreme events; (iv) the increase of low-fire-recurrence regions; and (v) changes in fire seasonality, decreasing extreme wildfires in the late-dry-season. By revealing changes in fire patterns across different fire policy phases, our results reinforce the PB concept, within the IFM program, as an essential strategy to properly reduce emissions without compromising local biodiversity and control fuel loads in the WFS to prevent large and severe wildfire occurrences [4,42,82]. The observed changes in the fire regime due to the implementation of PB, namely, reduced and a more fragmented BA with more scars in the WFS, are in agreement with other studies that analyzed PB programs worldwide [13,18,[87][88][89].…”

Section: Evaluating Pbssupporting

confidence: 62%

“…The reduction in fire intensity and PM 2.5 extreme values in the first four years of the IFM program and the decrease in high-recurrence areas are promising and crucial for fire-prone ecosystem maintenance. Low-intensity fires have low impacts on fire-resistant vegetation and help create mosaics in the landscape with different fire histories, fundamental to conserve the biodiversity in tropical savannas, and the ecosystem services linked to fire events [42]. Similarly, other studies have shown CO 2 emissions reductions in the western United States (18-25%) [90] and Australia (38%) [8] linked to PB actions.…”

Section: Evaluating Pbsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Brazil was one of the last countries with tropical savannas to adopt an effective fire management policy. This resistance to change from a zero-fire policy to the presently implemented IFM program can be explained by a historical colonial legacy [6,16,17,55], but also by considerable uncertainty related to the effects of different fire regimes on very diverse ecosystems [4,42]. Since local communities are deeply involved in fire management activities and in a landscape where fire ignitions are predominantly human, the exchange of knowledge among environmental managers, researchers, and these traditional communities is essential to develop strategies to better conserve tropical savannas [108,113].…”

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, few studies have focused on such satellite-derived databases to analyze PB patterns in Brazil. Emergent literature seeks to show how PB has been contributing to decreasing wildfires in Brazilian savannas, mainly based on field campaigns or local observation [25,26,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. The majority of those studies rely on statistical summaries of active fire counts and total values of BA [6,39,43,45,46].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prescribed Burning Reduces Large, High-Intensity Wildfires and Emissions in the Brazilian Savanna

Santos

Nogueira

Souza

et al. 2021

Fire

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Brazil has recently (2014) changed from a zero-fire policy to an Integrated Fire Management (IFM) program with the active use of prescribed burning (PB) in federal Protected Areas (PA) and Indigenous Territories (IT) of the Brazilian savanna (Cerrado). PB is commonly applied in the management of fire-prone ecosystems to mitigate large, high-intensity wildfires, the associated emissions, and high fire suppression costs. However, the effectiveness of such fire management in reducing large wildfires and emissions over Brazil remains mostly unevaluated. Here, we aim to fill the gap in the scientific evidence of the PB benefits by relying on the most up-to-date, satellite-derived fire datasets of burned area (BA), fire size, duration, emissions, and intensity from 2003 to 2018. We focused on two Cerrado ITs with different sizes and hydrological regimes, Xerente and Araguaia, where IFM has been in place since 2015. To understand fire regime dynamics, we divided the study period into three phases according to the prevalent fire policy and the individual fire scars into four size classes. We considered two fire seasons: management fire season (MFS, which goes from rainy to mid-dry season, when PBs are undertaken) and wildfires season (WFS, when PBs are not performed and fires tend to grow out of control). Our results show that the implementation of the IFM program was responsible for a decrease of the areas affected by high fire recurrence in Xerente and Araguaia, when compared with the Zero Fire Phase (2008–2013). In both regions, PB effectively reduced the large wildfires occurrence, the number of medium and large scars, fire intensity, and emissions, changing the prevalent fire season from the WFS to the MFS. Such reductions are significant since WFS causes higher negative impacts on biodiversity conservation and higher greenhouse gas emissions. We conclude that the effect on wildfires can still be reduced if effective fire management policies, including PB, continue to be implemented during the coming decades.

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Section: Evaluating Pbssupporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Evaluating Pbsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prescribed Burning Reduces Large, High-Intensity Wildfires and Emissions in the Brazilian Savanna

Santos

Nogueira

Souza

et al. 2021

Fire

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“…Like other savannas, Cerrado is subject to sporadic and natural occurrence of fires (Coutinho, 1981;Ramos-Neto & Pivello, 2000), and depend on the fire regime to maintain the structure, biodiversity and functioning (Abreu et al, 2017;Durigan & Ratter, 2006). Despite these observations, Brazil still has no consistent fire policy, which leverages the use of prescribed fire as a tool for savanna conservation (Durigan & Ratter, 2016;Pivello et al, 2021). There is a perception of the general public that fire is detrimental to the fauna, and the handful of studies addressing this issue call for caution in the recommendation to use prescribed fire as a management tool (but see Durigan et al, 2020 and references therein).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prescribed fire enhances seed removal by ants in a Neotropical savanna

2021

Self Cite

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Seed dispersal and predation by animals often drive plant regeneration. In tropical savannas, such as the Cerrado of Brazil, fire is also a key process in ecosystem dynamics, consuming the lower vegetation strata and killing wildlife, but how fire affects seedanimal interactions is virtually unknown. We investigated the effects of prescribed fires on the removal of diaspores from Miconia rubiginosa and sunflower Helianthus annuus in Cerrado from southeast Brazil. Using plots burned one month or one year before sampling and unburned controls, we assessed the effect of prescribed fire on microhabitat structure and diaspore removal by vertebrates and ants. Covered microhabitats experienced higher seed removal by vertebrates than open microhabitats, but microhabitat features did not influence seed removal by ants. Prescribed fire did not change the total amount of seed removal, and ants were responsible for most removals in burned and control plots. However, fire increased the importance of ants as agents of removal compared to vertebrates. These changes were probably mediated by changes in microhabitat cover. It is likely that species, whose seeds are often preyed upon by vertebrates, benefit from fire to escape predation, while the opposite would be true for those removed by granivorous ants. By changing microhabitats composition and frequency of seed removal by different agents, fire may create pulses of opportunities for certain plant species to increase their populations and enlarge their spatial distribution, while constraining others. However, how different fire intensities and frequencies influence seed fate of different species is still to be investigated.

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Examining China's rural fire protection within the rural revitalization strategy: An in‐depth policy research

Li,

2023

Fire and Materials

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Currently, rural fire protection issues in China loom large, resulting in frequent fire incidents due to an inadequate rural fire infrastructure and insufficient firefighting resources. Consequently, prompt fire suppression becomes challenging, leading to significant casualties and economic losses. To address these challenges and align with the national rural revitalization strategy, our research team dedicated 5 years to meticulously scrutinizing fire incident data in China spanning from 2012 to 2022, alongside an extensive review of international documents. We conducted on‐site investigations in rural areas across 63 cities in 11 provinces, including Anhui and Jiangsu. By analyzing fire data and field investigation results, we identified the causes and percentages of 11 types of rural fires, as well as summarized five types of rural fire hazards and six types of rural fires. Drawing from insights gleaned from the experiences of countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, and South America, we have formulated eight policy recommendations for rural fire protection, encompassing aspects like organization, responsibility, planning, construction, operation, and maintenance, as well as public awareness. Therefore, we anticipate that this study will catalyze enhancing rural fire protection efforts in China and other developing nations.

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Understanding Brazil’s catastrophic fires: Causes, consequences and policy needed to prevent future tragedies

Cited by 164 publications

References 178 publications

Prescribed Burning Reduces Large, High-Intensity Wildfires and Emissions in the Brazilian Savanna

Prescribed Burning Reduces Large, High-Intensity Wildfires and Emissions in the Brazilian Savanna

Prescribed fire enhances seed removal by ants in a Neotropical savanna

Examining China's rural fire protection within the rural revitalization strategy: An in‐depth policy research

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