How to prevent Europe’s forest fires

18 August 2022

EUROPE – The EU’s proposed Forest Monitoring Law is just one of a raft of measures that could help avert catastrophic forest fires, writes professor Sten B. Nilsson.

Professor Sten B. Nilsson is an expert on boreal forests policy and global forest sector analysis. He has authored or co-authored around 400 scientific papers, and contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

Europe is getting a foretaste of life in a warming world.

Heat records have tumbled this summer as fires have raged across tens of thousands of hectares of forest, leaving devastation in their wake. The need to make steep cuts in emissions could not be clearer.

Yet, with the global average temperature already 1.1 °C higher than at the start of the industrial era, it is also clear that we must redouble our efforts to prevent forest fires.

Once fires are raging, they can be very difficult to stop. So just as it is better to prevent illness through a change of diet and lifestyle rather than ending up in hospital, stopping forest fires from starting is more effective than trying to suppress them.

An area of Europe equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium has burned so far this year, the most by this point in the calendar year since records began in 2006.

So the question of what the EU can do to support the member states facing this increased risk is particularly urgent – as is the question of what member states themselves can do.

Information gap

First, some important context on forest fires.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, forest fires are not inherently bad but are actually an important part of forests’ ecosystems, which can contribute to their long-term health.

However, the out-of-control fires that have broken out across Europe do not fit this mould and pose grave dangers to life, property and nature.

It is also true that while extreme temperatures are driving forest fires across the EU, they are usually started by lightning or people – the latter through traditional vegetation management, as well as arson and other reckless behaviour.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that in many EU countries, the rural population is ageing and declining, meaning there is less monitoring and stocktaking of forests in the countryside in general, which increases the risk of fires spreading.

Therefore we need far more detailed information about the distribution of fire risks in the landscapes where fires are most common and comprehensive information about the forests to feed the models which are used to assess possible developments of fires and fire-fighting strategies.

In practical terms, this includes information and knowledge about the forests to build forest fire lanes – gaps in vegetation to slow or stop wildfires – and identify where we have available water and may have to build water ponds.

Such strategies are facilitated by better, more integrated monitoring.

Mosaic landscapes

One potential solution to this information gap lies in the Law on EU Forest Monitoring that the European Commission has proposed as part of its 2030 Forest Strategy.

This law, which is expected in the summer of 2023, will help track the EU’s proposed legally binding nature restoration targets, aimed at returning the EU’s damaged ecosystems, including its forests, to health.

It could provide more systematic monitoring of the pests and diseases which denote stricken forests through dead trees, which are prime fuel for wildfires.

Or, by looking at species composition, monitoring could pinpoint high-risk fire areas, such as dense plantations of maritime pine.

Another measure that the EU and the member states can take to mitigate the dangers of forest fires is to improve forest management by building mosaic landscapes.

This means encouraging a mix of ecosystems and habitats, which enhance their resilience while also improving biodiversity.

To this end, we must move away from national programmes that prioritise misguided tree-planting schemes and harmful bioenergy subsidies.

Instead, we should encourage the health of existing forest stands. This can be done by adding criteria to national forest finance programs to improve adaptation, reduce fire risk, or promote alternative management practices such as continuous cover forestry or close-to-nature forestry.

For long-term forest fire prevention, we need to change the structure of forests: from large monocultures to patchy forest landscapes with a wide variety of forests. This may require breaking up stands, clusters of trees, composed of high fire risk species to make them more diverse.

We need to assess the fuel amount, structure and consistency of forests for fire in order to do relevant fire risk assessments.

All of these elements, in addition to training and educating fire crews and the local population, will be necessary to prepare forests and forestry for the future.

It will take a concerted effort on multiple fronts to avoid a future in which the devastation that fires have wreaked on Europe’s forests this summer becomes the norm.

Instead of being a victim of climate change, our forests should be a vital tool in fighting it.

18. August 2022/by GFMCadmin