Global Fire and Early Warning
NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response - 2009 Global Fire Maps
MODIS Rapid Response System Global Fire Maps
Global Disaster Fires
Land and forest (or wildland) fire is a constantly occurring, globally-widespread phenomenon. Every year, wildland fires burn several hundred million hectares of vegetation around the world. Many global regions have reported increasing fire activity in recent decades, which is attributed to numerous factors such as climate change-altered fire regimes, rural-urban population shifts, and land use change affecting vegetation and fuel conditions. Approximately 80% of global fire occurs in grasslands and savannas, primarily in Africa and Australia, but also in South Asia and South America; the remaining 20% occurs in the worlds forests. The large majority of wildland fire is human-caused. With the vast amount of fire that occurs globally, a proportion inevitably becomes uncontrolled wildfire of which a small percentage has disastrous social, economic and/or environmental impacts.
Most global fire is unmonitored and undocumented so the record of wildland fire disasters is incomplete. However, the existing record indicates that disaster fires occur in every global region, in every vegetated biome, on a regular basis. Disaster conditions are defined as any wildfire(s) situation that overwhelms fire suppression capacity to the point that human life, property, and livelihood cannot be protected. Besides the threat to human safety, these fires can also have serious negative impacts on human health, regional economies, global climate change, and ecosystems in non-fire-prone biomes.
To mitigate fire-related problems and escalating fire suppression costs, forest and land management agencies, as well as land owners and communities, require early warning of extreme fire danger conditions that lead to uncontrolled wildfires.
Early warning of these conditions allows fire managers to implement fire prevention, detection, and pre-suppression action plans before fire problems begin. Fire danger rating is commonly used to provide early warning of the potential for serious wildfires based on daily weather data. Fire danger information is often enhanced with satellite data, such as hot spots for early fire detection, and with spectral data on land cover and fuel conditions. Normally, fire danger rating systems provide a 4- to 6-hour early warning of the highest fire danger for any particular day that the weather data is supplied. However, by using forecasted conditions from advanced numerical weather models, extended early warning (i.e., 1-2 weeks) can be provided. This extra time allows for greater coordination of resource-sharing and mobilization within and between countries.
The global wildland fire community recognizes that no individual country is capable of solving the problem of increasing fire activity and disaster fire occurrence on its own, and that greater international cooperation is required. The global fire early warning system is one component of A Strategy to Enhance International Cooperation in Fire Management (FAO 2006).
FAO (2006) Fire management: review of international cooperation by the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Fire Management Working Paper FM18E. (Rome)
