skip to main content
Language:
Search Limited to: Search Limited to: Resource type Show Results with: Show Results with: Search type Index

Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 2017-03, Vol.114 (11), p.2946-2951 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Volumes 1–89 and 106–114, copyright as a collective work only; author(s) retains copyright to individual articles ;Copyright National Academy of Sciences Mar 14, 2017 ;ISSN: 0027-8424 ;EISSN: 1091-6490 ;DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1617394114 ;PMID: 28242690

Full text available

Citations Cited by
  • Title:
    Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States
  • Author: Balch, Jennifer K. ; Bradley, Bethany A. ; Abatzoglou, John T. ; Nagy, R. Chelsea ; Fusco, Emily J. ; Mahood, Adam L.
  • Subjects: Biological Sciences ; Climate change ; Ecosystem studies ; Environmental policy ; Forest & brush fires ; Geography ; Human Activities ; Human influences ; Humans ; Lightning ; Risk management ; Seasons ; Social Sciences ; Spatio-Temporal Analysis ; United States ; Wildfires
  • Is Part Of: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 2017-03, Vol.114 (11), p.2946-2951
  • Description: The economic and ecological costs of wildfire in the United States have risen substantially in recent decades. Although climate change has likely enabled a portion of the increase in wildfire activity, the direct role of people in increasing wildfire activity has been largely overlooked. We evaluate over 1.5 million government records of wildfires that had to be extinguished or managed by state or federal agencies from 1992 to 2012, and examined geographic and seasonal extents of human-ignited wildfires relative to lightning-ignited wildfires. Humans have vastly expanded the spatial and seasonal “fire niche” in the coterminous United States, accounting for 84% of all wildfires and 44% of total area burned. During the 21-y time period, the human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season and added an average of 40,000 wildfires per year across the United States. Human-started wildfires disproportionally occurred where fuel moisture was higher than lightning-started fires, thereby helping expand the geographic and seasonal niche of wildfire. Human-started wildfires were dominant (>80% of ignitions) in over 5.1 million km², the vast majority of the United States, whereas lightning-started fires were dominant in only 0.7 million km², primarily in sparsely populated areas of the mountainous western United States. Ignitions caused by human activities are a substantial driver of overall fire risk to ecosystems and economies. Actions to raise awareness and increase management in regions prone to human-started wildfires should be a focus of United States policy to reduce fire risk and associated hazards.
  • Publisher: United States: National Academy of Sciences
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0027-8424
    EISSN: 1091-6490
    DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1617394114
    PMID: 28242690
  • Source: Open Access: PubMed Central
    Geneva Foundation Free Medical Journals at publisher websites
    MEDLINE
Back to results list
INSPIRE LIBRARY - TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY (84-028) 37 755 057 Feedback
19 Nguyen Huu Tho St. Dist.7, HCM thuvien@tdtu.edu.vn

Copyright © 2017 INSPIRE LIBRARY - TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY

Searching Remote Databases, Please Wait