IFFN Recent Publications: O Megaincêndio do Século – 1998 <The Wildfire of the Century> (IFFN No. 22 – April 2000)

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

O Megaincêndio do Século – 1998
<The Wildfire of the Century>

(IFFN No. 22 – April 2000, p. 108-109)

This book describes one of the most severe environmental destructions, in a region of Brazil which normally is not subjected to large seasonal wildfires. What happened in the State of Roraima in March 1998 was caused primarily by the intense dryness of the region, a consequence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon which caused climatic perturbations all over the globe. In addition, farmers and land owners were not careful enough and continued to practice traditional burnings after the clearing of forests, in spite of the obvious high wildfire risk and the prohibitions by the Federal Government. It is this situation that is described in this book.

The book starts with a general description of how most of the wildfires get started in Brazil. It also highlights the impact on the environment and the atmosphere. It is important to realize that Roraima is located outside of the area of Brazil where vegetation fires occur regularly – the cerrado (savanna) region in the center of the country. The 1998 wildfires of Roraim were a big surprise and a great exception. The geographic region of Roraima is described, calling attention to the fact that it is almost entirely situated in the Northern Hemisphere. Chapter 3 describes the meteorology of the region, including information on the climatic phenomenon El Niño. Chapter 4 describes the evolution of the fire event during its most critical phase. How it started and developed during the month of March. The physical damage caused by the wildfire is described, as well as the technical assessment of the size of the burnt area, and in Chapter 6 the heroes and villains of the episode are mentioned. The end of the huge fire is described in Chapter 7. The fire was extinguished not by the firemen, who despite their excellent performance were helpless in view of the magnitude of the fire disaster, but by the natural rains that started to fall by the end of March and beginning of April.

Kirchhoff, V.W.J., and P.A.S. Escada. 1998. O Megaincêndio do Século – 1998. The Wildfire of the Century. TRANSTEC Editorial, Sao José dos Campos, 86 pp. (ISBN 85-85417)

IFFN No. 22

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International Forest Fire News (IFFN)

Global Fire Monitoring Center

International Forest Fire News

No. 26 – January-June 2002

Complete IFFN Issue No. 26 (3.6 MB)

 

Editorial

ASIA AND OCEANIA FIRE SPECIAL

Australia

China

Fiji

India

Indonesia

Japan

Korea

Malaysia

Mongolia

Nepal

New Zealand

Philippines

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Vietnam

® Due of the timelag between editing and print/distribution of IFFN, readers interested in meeting announcements are kindly requested to visit the Internet version of this issue for update and short-term announcement of meetings (continuously updated) on https://gfmc.online

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News from Fire Reseach: The Global Fire Product: Fire Distribution from Satellite Data (IFFN No. 19 – September 1998)

NEWS FROM FIRE RESEARCH:

The Global Fire Product:
Fire Distribution from Satellite Data

(IFFN No. 19 – September 1998,p. 78-83)

Introduction

In 1991, following a workshop on the requirements for terrestrial biospheric data sets and in response to requirements from the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) core projects, IGBP-DIS set up the Fire Working Group (FWG) to develop a consensus algorithm for global fire mapping. From this was born the concept of a Global Fire Product (GFP). This would be based on the use of an active fire detection algorithm and the global daily Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data being collected by the IGBP-DIS 1 km AVHRR Global Land Project (Eidenshink and Faundeen 1994). A consensus algorithm was developed (Flasse and Ceccato 1996) and approved by the FWG in 1996 (Malingreau and Justice 1996). Data processing was initiated at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 1996, and completed in November 1997 (Stroppiana et al. 1998).

Input data set

The input data set is composed of 5-channel, raw AVHRR scenes at 1.1 km (nadir) resolution for each daily afternoon orbital pass of NOAA-11 over all land and coastal zones. The data were collected over the 21 month period from April 1992 to December 1993. The data set was provided by the USGS-EROS Data Center and ESA-ESRIN; it is fully documented in Eidenshink and Faudeen (1994).

Algorithm

Each region of the globe has its own characteristic fire regime, biome, and seasonal pattern of surface temperature and consequently, a different response in each of the NOAA-AVHRR channels as a result of fire disturbance. In order to process a global data set automatically and without adjusting the algorithm for each geographic region a contextual algorithm was chosen since it gives better performance and global consistency compared to a conventional channel-threshold technique (Giglio et al. 1998). The chosen algorithm is essentially that of Flasse and Ceccato (1996), with very minor modifications. For each day processed, the system ingests 2 gigabytes of data from tape, which represents the 5 channels of the raw AVHRR data for the 14 orbits covering all land areas of the globe. Firstly the data is geolocated using an orbit model obtained from the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR) (Rosborough et al. 1994). The orbit model is typically accurate to ±2 pixels. Then all ocean and large inland water bodies are masked out. A “no-burn” mask is applied to exclude regions where the surface is of a type which does not support any significant biomass burning. These masks significantly reduce the amount of data to be subsequently processed. A simple cloud detection algorithm based on that of Saunders and Kriebel (1988) is applied before finally testing the remaining pixels for the presence of hot sources using the algorithm mentioned above.

Product description

The GFP itself is composed of the following two kinds of data:

Daily fire position tables: These consist of daily lists of the latitude and longitude of each fire pixel detected by the system for the period April 1992 – December 1993.

10-day synthesis raster format data: These are 10-day composite rasters on latitude-longitude grids of 0.5º ´ 0.5º cells and contain the following bands:

  • Fire Density Map: The number of fire pixels detected in each grid cell (see Fig.1)

  • Cloud/No-Data Map: The percentage of cloud or “no-data” obscuring each cell, and

  • No-Burn Mask: The percentage of each grid cell masked out by the no-burn mask.

Global distribution of fire activity

Twelve months of the global fire product (April 1992 – March 1993) have been studied in detail and the spatial and temporal distribution of fires has been reported elsewhere (Dwyer et al. 1998a,b). A total of 6.5 million fire pixels were detected in the 12 months of 1 km resolution AVHRR data analyzed. However, these are not evenly distributed throughout the year (Fig.2). There is a peak in global fire activity in July and August. It then decreases slowly reaching a minimum in early November when the number detected is only 28% of those detected during the period of peak burning. From November fire activity increases again reaching another lower peak in late December and January after which activity reduces.

While over 70% of fire pixels are located within the tropics, 50% of all fire pixels detected were on the African continent. Most of the fires are set in the savanna regions. The reasons for burning are numerous and vary across the continent, but some of the more common ones are: burning to remove unpalatable stubble and to initiate off-season regrowth of fresh shoots, clearing ground for crops, establishment of fire-breaks around settlements, removal of parasites, to drive game out of hiding and to make pathways accessible. Other regions where very high concentrations of fire activity were seen are in mainland Southeast Asia, the Orissa province in Eastern India, parts of the Cerrado in Brazil and Arnhem land in the Northern Territories of Australia. Although the number of fires occurring in temperate and boreal biomes is much smaller than in the tropics, they can have a big impact on land cover and the global carbon cycle. Fires in boreal biomes can be of extremely large extent, consume very high fuel quantities and are often left to burn out naturally.

Uses of the product

The use of the Global Fire Product (GFP) was envisaged for two user communities which can be loosely collected under the subject areas of atmospheric chemistry and ecosystem studies. Biomass burning is responsible for large emissions of gaseous and particulate products into the atmosphere and has a significant role in ecosystem maintenance and change. Use of the data is foreseen in certain IGBP core projects such as the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry project (IGAC), the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change Project (LUCC) and the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project (GCTE) . Other international initiatives such as the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) project of CEOS and Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) –2000 (FAO) have expressed interest in utilizing the product. The product is unique in that a single algorithm was used for all the processing therefore guaranteeing an internally consistent data set. The full resolution of 1km is available to all users who may regrid the data for their own requirements. This flexibility allows the use of the product across a wide range of spatial scales.

Atmospheric Chemistry Studies

The highest resolution of the GFP is 1 km. In studies related to atmospheric chemistry, it is probable that a gridded product at a lower resolution is more appropriate. Figure 1 shows fire counts in 0.5° by 0.5° grid cells for a ten day period. Similar products of different grid sizes and over different time durations can easily be constructed from the basic product. The information provided by the GFP which can be of most use to the atmospheric chemistry community is:

  • Spatial localisation of fire events

  • Spatial variation in the number of fire events

  • Seasonality of fire.

With respect to the last point, although the day on which each fire event was detected is recorded, the seasonality i.e. the time period and duration of the burning season is likely to be of more interest. Figure 3 shows an example of such a derived product. The mid fire season month which is defined as the month in which 50% of all fire events were recorded for each grid cell is shown. Other parameters related to the seasonality of burning can be easily derived. Previous studies of emissions due to biomass burning have generally assigned an empirical time distribution of burning events throughout the fire season and across large areas. Hao and Liu (1994) and Kim and Newchurch (1998) used ozone measurements to identify the spatial location and burning period in their studies of gaseous emissions and transport from biomass burning. The GFP can give improved estimates of these parameters from direct observations.

 

https://i0.wp.com/gfmc.online/wp-content/uploads/res_1_1-1.gif?resize=992%2C496&ssl=1 (75167 Byte)

Fig.1. Summary of fire pixels per cell from 30 July to 8 August 1992.

 

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Fig.2. The number of fire pixels detected in each of the 12 months of AVHRR data.

 

It is not advised to use the GFP to estimate area burned as the product indicates only the presence or absence of fire in a pixel. Nor can it be used to count the absolute number of fire events in a given location as it is only a temporal sample. Although a research study using 1 km AVHRR data combined with high resolution LANDSAT data in Southern Africa has shown that it is feasible to estimate burned area from the 1 km data (Justice et al., 1996), its results cannot be universally applied. Extensive research for different vegetation types would need to be carried out if such a scheme were to be adopted. Current research is focused on retrieving burned area directly from low resolution satellite data.

Ecosystem Studies

Vegetation types affected: The GFP facilitates the study of fire in relation to landcover and ecosystem dynamics. The relative levels of fire occurrence in different vegetation types and regions can be estimated when the data is used with appropriate land cover maps. Using the 25 class United States Geological Survey (USGS) legend supplied with the IGBP-DIS 1km land cover map, fire distributions were determined for the different vegetation types. Almost 90% of all the fire pixels detected were found in 8 vegetation types. Table 1 shows the percentage of the global land surface covered by each of these vegetation types, the proportion of each type which was affected by fire and the percentage of the earth’s land surface this represents. Although over 6% of the earth’s surface was affected by fire in the course of the year, this does not mean that this much surface area was burned. As each fire pixel detected covers a 1 km2 surface area it can represent one or more fires of unknown dimensions within that area. The type of vegetation burned is also of interest in atmospheric chemistry studies and in research into carbon cycling.

Timing The timing of fire is a very important parameter in relation to the study of fire impact on ecosystems. In tropical regions, late dry season fires are generally more intense and difficult to control than those occurring in the early dry season, when the fuel is more moist. The GFP data combined with data on vegetation conditions or weather data for the year in question can be used to determine how the timing of burning varies spatially and in different vegetation types.

Fig.3. For each 0.5° by 0.5° cell the month of the mid fire season is shown. This is independent of the number of fire pixels detected in a cell (330 KB)

 

Tab.1. Vegetation types affected by fire. The eight vegetation types, as defined in the IGBP-DIS land cover map, which showed the most fire activity account for 66% of the earth’s land surface. Varying amounts of each vegetation type were affected by fire, however, savanna burning was the most widespread.

Vegetation Type

% of global land surface

% of vegetation type affected

% of global land surface affected by fire

Savanna

11

19

2.1

Evergreen Broadleaf forest

10

7

0.7

Deciduous Broadleaf forest

5

13

0.6

Dryland crops and pasture

9

6

0.5

Shrubland

12

4

0.5

Cropland/Woodland mosaic

7

7

0.5

Irrigated Crops and pasture

3

14

0.4

Grassland

9

4

0.3

 

Land use and Land Cover Change Fire is an indicator of land use and land cover conversion. Although the GFP is limited in time to 21 months, because of its global extent which covers all ecosystems it facilitates the study of spatial relationships between fire activity and land cover use and change.

Diurnal Cycle The GFP gives a snapshot of fire activity for each location at one instant – early afternoon- during the day. It is not a record of total fire activity. Until further information is available on the diurnal variation in burning in different regions and vegetation types, it is not possible to say what percentage of vegetation fires are captured in the GFP. Night time data from the Defence Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) combined with the GFP can improve knowledge of the diurnal cycle in burning.

Limitations of the product

The GFP is the first map of global vegetation fire derived with a single algorithm directly from observations of the fires themselves, and it will undoubtedly prove to be of considerable value both in global and regional scale studies. The contextual algorithm gives better fire detection performance over that obtained with algorithms based on simple threshold tests and it provides the best consistency for global applications (Giglio et al. 1998). However there are a number of limitations to fire detection using the AVHRR sensor alone. The imagery only represents a snapshot of the total number of fires which burn in any 24 hour period, fire counts may be either overestimated or underestimated due to confusion with hot surfaces and sun glint from reflective surfaces such as water and clouds. Although flaming fires with fronts as short as 50 m can be detected, in general no information on the fire characteristics (e.g. size, temperature) is available. However, this single observation system approach will soon be qualitatively and quantitatively improved by combining global datasets of both active fires and burned areas from different Earth observing systems.

Product availability

In March 1998 the Fire Working Group (FWG) of the IGBP-DIS recommended an internal evaluation process to be completed by the end of the year before adoption of the GFP as an IGBP-DIS data set. The GFP has been distributed to the FWG and users involved in biomass burning research. During this time, the quality of GFP will be assessed in each of the major biomes. The results of the evaluation will be available with the product. In the meantime, the data set is available for use on application to the authors.

Acknowledgments

The Global Fire Project was conducted under the direction of Jean-Paul Malingreau, and was coordinated by the Fire Working Group of IGBP-DIS. This work was funded by the European Commission.

Edward Dwyer, Daniela Stroppiana, Simon Pinnock, and Jean-Marie Grégoire @
Global Vegetation Monitoring (GVM) Unit, Space Applications Institute, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy. Corresponding author:

Edward Dwyer
MTV/SAI, TP263
Joint Research Centre
I – 21020 Ispra, Varese, ITALY

Fax: ++39-0332-789073
Tel: ++39-0332-785608
e-mail: ned.dwyer@jrc.it

 

References

Dwyer, E., J.-M.Grégoire, and J.P.Malingreau. 1998a. A global analysis of vegetation fires using satellite images: spatial and temporal dynamics. Ambio 27 (3), 175-181.

Dwyer, E., S.Pinnock, J.-M.Grégoire, and J.M.C.Pereira. 1998b. Global spatial and temporal distribution of vegetation fire as determined from satellite observations International Journal of Remote Sensing (submitted)

Eidenshink, J.C., and J.L.Faudeen. 1994. The 1-km AVHRR fire detection. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 15, 3443- 3462.

Flasse, S., and P. Ceccato. 1996. A contextual Algorithm for AVHRR fire detection. Int. J. Remote Sensing, 17, 419-424.

Giglio, L., J.D.Kendall, and C.O.Justice. 1998. Evaluation of Global Fire Detection Algorithm Using Simulated AVHRR Infrared Data. Int. J. Remote Sensing (accepted).

Hao, W.M., and M.H.Liu. 1994. Spatial and temporal distribution of tropical biomass burning. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 8, 495-503.

Justice, C.O., J.D.Kendall, P.R.Dowty, and R.J.Scholes. 1996. Satellite remote sensing of fires during the SAFARI campaign using NOAA advanced very high resolution radiometer data. J. Geophys. Res. 101 (D19), 23851-23863.

Kim, J.H., and M.J.Newchurch. 1998 Biomass-burning influence on tropospheric ozone over New Guinea and South America. J. Geophys. Res. 103 (D1), 1455-1461.

Malingreau, J.P., and C.O.Justice. 1996. Definition and implementation of a global fire product derived from AVHRR data. IGBP-DIS Working Paper #17, 3rd IGBP-DIS Fire Working Group meeting report, Toulouse, France, on 13-15 November 1996.

Rosborough, G., Baldwin, D., and Emery, W.J., 1994, Precise AVHRR image navigation. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 32, 644-657.

Saunders, R.W., and Kriebel, K.T., 1988, An improved method for detecting clear sky and cloud radiances from AVHRR data. Int. J. Remote Sensing 9, 123-150.Stroppiana, D., S.Pinnock, and J.M.Grégoire. 1998. The global fire product. Int. J. Remote Sensing (submitted)

IFFN No. 19

 

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Editorial (IFFN No. 26 – January 2002)

EDITORIAL

(IFFN No. 26 – January 2002)

In the Editorial of International Forest Fire News No. 24(April 2001) the rationale and a short overview of the FAO Global Forest FireAssessment 1990-2000 within the Forest Resources Assessment 2000(FRA) has been presented. Most of the country contributions that includestatistical wildland fire data and narrative information regarding the firesituation in the 1990s have been prepared for publication in IFFN and the FAOreport. This special issue of IFFN includes national fire reports from Asia andthe Pacific. Meanwhile the FAO “FAO Global Forest Fire Assessment1990-2000” has been published in full length on the internet. The websiteaddress on which the report can be downloaded (PDF; size: 6 MB) is:

http://www.fao.org:80/forestry/fo/fra/docs/Wp55_eng.pdf    

Based on the country reports and the IFFN archive the FAOhas put the most important fire information in the country profiles. Forestryand fire information can be navigated by country:

http://www.fao.org/forestry/fo/country/nav_world.jsp 

Through a cooperative arrangement with the Global FireMonitoring Center (GFMC) more country profiles will be added successively to theFAO website.

Australia’s Christmas Fires of 2001-2002

During the preparation of this IFFN issue Australia’s ChristmasFires burned between end of December 2001 and mid of January 2002. Somemedia called this fire episode as Australia’s “worst fire disaster inhistory.” However, when the fires were terminated by rains by mid January2002 the losses were less severe than anticipated. About 600,000 hectares hadbeen affected by wildfires, a total of 120 houses burnt down, 3000 sheep werekilled. These damages should be compared with the impacts of the AshWednesday Fires of 1983 that occurred during the drought caused by theextreme El Niño of 1982-83. At that time thehuman death toll was 75, a total of 2539 houses burned and about 300,000domestic livestock were killed y the fires. Satellite-derivedburned area assessments included in the Australia country report in this issueof IFFN reveal that in the two fire seasons 1998-99 and 1999-2000 a total of ca.345,000 wildland fires were recorded in the whole of Australia affecting 31.2and 71.2 million hectares respectively.

It is well known that Australia’s ecosystem are welladapted to fire. Human-caused fires have been documented for the last 60,000years. Natural- and human-caused fires of varying intensities and severities areinherent elements of ecosystem dynamics. Apparently the impacts of the 2001-02fires in Australia were relatively small compared to earlier extreme events oraverages of vegetated area affected by fire. Why were these fires considered amajor disaster?

First, the fires burned at the wildland-urban interface.This interface is a broad belt of urban development sprawling into thesurrounding bush and forests. Similar to the exurban trends in North America theAustralian cities expand horizontally rather than vertically. The highlyflammable properties of Australia’s bush and forest vegetation in which suburbanhouses are embedded represent an extremely high hazard for these houses,especially considering the fact that the houses are often wooden constructions.

Second, prescribed burning as a standard fire managementpractice in Australia is difficult to apply in this intermix situation.Prescribed burning aims at reducing fuel loads (combustible materials) on theforest floor and understory under controllable conditions in order to reduce theenergy potential and to avoid high-intensity fires that are difficult tocontrol.

Third, the Christmas Fires of 2001-2002 were caused by anunprecedented amount of arson. What was new in the situation was the high shareof young people setting these fires purposely. The assumption that urban kidsliving in the exurban environment and not being aware of the consequences oftheir doing because of a lack of environmental awareness and responsibility,however, must be proved.

The coincidence of weather conditions favourable for thespread of large, high-intensity fires, and the above-mentioned circumstancesreveal an increased vulnerability of the post-modern society, especially thoseliving at the edge of or within a system in which fire is a common and needednatural phenomenon.

Freiburg, January 2002                                                                                                Johann G. Goldammer


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| IFFN No. 26 ]

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Fig.3. For each 0.5° by 0.5° cell the month of the mid fire season is shown. This is independent of the number of fire pixels detected in a cell

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International Forest Fire News (IFFN)

Global Fire Monitoring Center

International Forest Fire News

No. 31 – July – December 2004

Complete IFFN Issue No. 31 (PDF, 5.8 MB)

Editorial

SPECIAL ISSUE – THE ISDR GLOBAL WILDLAND FIRE NETWORK

Introduction

Baltic Region

Mediterranean / Balkans / Near East

Sub-Sahara Africa

South America

Pan-American Wildland Fire Conference (San José, Costa Rica, 23 October 2004)

South East Asia

Northeast Asia

Central Asia

UN-ISDR Wildland Fire Advisory Group / Global Wildland Fire Network

Background Papers of the UN-ISDR Wildland Fire Advisory Group

Recent Publications

® Due of the timelag between editing and print/distribution of IFFN, readers interested in meeting announcements are kindly requested to visit the Internet version of this issue for update and short-term announcement of meetings (continuously updated) on <https://gfmc.online/>

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USA: 1990 Fire Activity (IFFN No. 4 – December 1990)

 

1990 Fire Activity

(IFFN No. 4 – December 1990)

The potential for the 1990 fire season was apparent early in the year. Extreme drought prevailed over much of the West. Southern California recorded the driest winter in 133 years on top of its fifth year of drought. The mountains of the Southwest were devoid of winter snow pack. The debris on the ground resulting from Hurricane Hugo made a million acres in the Carolina’s a matter of real concern. Late rainstorms caused a large amount fine fuels to flourish in the Great Basin.

Even with this potential, the season was slow to start. An abnormally wet climate developed over the eastern part of the country, and aside from a few fires in Southern Florida, there was a quiet season in the Southeast. In late June a rash of fires broke out in Texas, Western New Mexico, and Arizona as record heat brought on numerous dry lightning storms. On the afternoon of 26 June a fire fighting crew from Arizona Prison System was overrun on the Dude Fire, Tonto National Forest, and six fatalities occurred. One day later, two firefighters lost their lives in another fire entrapment situation on the California Fire near Riverside, California.

A lot of new fires occurred during this period, the most notable being the Paint fire near Santa Barbara, California which burned 280 homes in one three hour run. The Bedford Fire near Corona, California also burned homes. Over 120 new fires were occurring each day and although most of the firefighting organizations were strapped, they made excellent efforts in initial attack which were generally successful.

On 2 July, Alaska had a significant lightning storm resulting in 40 new fires. Firefighting resources began to flow northward. Though the fires in the Southwest were beginning to receive some rain, they still had a lot of fire and needed the Nation’s firefighting assets. Strapped for resources, our partners in Canada were tapped for assistance, and they responded with two air tankers.

Twenty-two new fires started in Alaska including on that threatened Tok Junction and closed the ALCAN Highway. A Yukon high pressure system became established, and Alaska was in trouble by 10 July when over 100 large fires spread from west of Galena into Canada. At the same time, a 1,200 ha fire on the Okefenokee Refuge in Georgia required a Type I team and lightning fires were beginning in the Pacific Northwest. The weather in the West was extremely hot and dry with an average of 26,000 lightning strikes per day, but tough, effective initial attack continued to hold any fires from growing very large.

On 8 August the Awbrey Hills Fires on the outskirts of Bend, Oregon, destroyed 28 homes. It became necessary to move some resources from Alaska southward as there were about 350 fires occurring each day from widespread, dry lightning storms in California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Fires erupting in Yosemite Park and the adjacent Stanislaus National Forest required closure of the Park.

At this point, four battalions of military troops were ordered; two into Oregon and two into California. Troops came from Fort Lewis, Washington, and Fort Carson, Colorado. By mid month the weather patterns began to change, bringing much cooler temperatures and showers into the Pacific Northwest. Demobilization began by 15 August. On 27 August, rains finally came to Alaska, and the crews began to gain control over the large fires they had been fighting. Nearly 1.2 million ha burned in Alaska this year in a very bad season.

By late August the weather over the West again became very hot and dry. Another killer fire in the Wasatch State Park, southwest of Salt Lake City, killed two firefighters and destroyed 18 homes. The Paint Fire in San Diego County burned 28 homes and threatened 175 more. Record high temperatures over most of the country kept initial attack crews busy and another fire in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge required considerable effort to hold it under 1,200 ha.

1990 was as terrifying and devastating as we thought it would be. Extreme fire behavior cost 14 firefighters their lives, and many injuries were sustained. There were four serious aircraft incidents but fortunately, no deaths. By 30 September 1990, a total of 60,875 fires had burned 4,575,117 acres (ca.1,85 million ha).

 

 

From: Denny Truesdale
Address:
Defense and Emergency Operations Specialist
Fire and Aviation Management,
USDA Forest Service
P.O. Box 96060
Washington, D.C. 20090-6090
U.S.A.

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Country Notes

 

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Editorial (IFFN No. 22 – April 2000)

EDITORIAL

(IFFN No. 22 – April 2000, 1p.)

Until recently the mandate of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) of the United Nations has been restricted to the “classical” SAR cases such as saving lives after earthquakes. Experience has shown, however, that secondary effects of natural and technogenic disasters, including large wildfires such as those which occurred during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) episode of 1997-98, require additional specialist advice in conjunction with SAR response and other humanitarian aid missions. The INSARAG family offers an appropriate structure. At the regional INSARAG Europe-Africa meeting in Germany (December 1999) a first proposal was elaborated to establish an INSARAG Fire Group consisting of three elements:

  • Wildland Fire
  • Hazardous Materials (Hazmat)
  • Industrial Fire

At a meeting at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) in January 2000 it was agreed that the original mandate of INSARAG in addition to search and rescue would also cover wider aspects of disaster/emergency response. This could include a variety of natural and human-made disasters, including wildland fires.

At the upcoming Baltic Exercise on Fire Information and Resources Exchange (BALTEX FIRE 2000) in Finland (June 2000) the meeting of the FAO/ECE/ILO Fire Team of Specialists on Forest Fire and the GFMC Advisory Board will further elaborate on the formation of the INSARAG Wildland Fire Group. It is expected that the INSARAG Europe-Africa Region will be the first to establish the fire component by November 2000; other INSARAG regions are expected to follow and jointly form a network of regional INSARAG Fire Nodes.

During its formation phase the future INSARAG Wildland Fire Subgroup already became operational at the occasion of the forest fire emergency in Ethiopia between February and April 2000. The coordination of a multinational fire fighting task force through the GFMC involved participation of Germany, South Africa, and the United States.

A report – a narrative of the events – is given in the first contribution of this IFFN issue. It reveals that this fire fighting campaign was the very first and successful multinational intervention in a tropical developing country in history. From the beginning of the situation the GFMC, in close collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), has assessed, monitored and supported the campaign in the multinational task force and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) successfully cooperated with the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Armed Forces of Ethiopia, and the numerous villagers and enthusiastic students which provided voluntary help. This smoothly working cooperation is acknowledged here.

The Ethiopia case shows that the international expertise and willingness to manage extreme fire situations under the socio-economic and environmental conditions of a “foreign” country is available. In this context I would like to announce that in the next issue of IFFN a report will be given on the Fire Working Group of the Global Observation of the Forest Cover (GOFC-Fire) initiative of the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) which was established in November 1999. The activities of GOFC-Fire are devoted to develop and promote remote sensing technologies for efficient fire management application and policy support.

 

Freiburg, April 2000                     Johann G. Goldammer

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IFFN No. 22

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International Forest Fire News (IFFN)

Global Fire Monitoring Center

International Forest Fire News

No. 36 – January – June 2007

Complete IFFN Issue No. 36 (5.2 MB)

Editorial

Special Issue on the 4th International Wildland Fire Conference (13-17 May 2007, Sevilla, Spain), and the Strategy to Enhance International Cooperation in Fire Management

Country reports

Research & Technology

® Due of the timelag between editing and print/distribution of IFFN, readers interested in meeting announcements are kindly requested to visit the Internet version of this issue for update and short-term announcement of meetings (continuously updated) on <https://gfmc.online/>

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GFMC: International Forest Fire News No. 22 – April 2000

International
Forest Fire
News

No. 22 – April 2000

This issue is also available as PDF-File (2.4 MB)
or as a selfextracting PDF-File (2.2 MB)

Editorial

Ethiopia Fire Special

Country Notes

Algeria

Brazil

Bulgaria

Cuba

Finland

Greece

India

Indonesia

Kazakhstan

Namibia

Russian Federation

Spain

South Africa

U.S.A.

Research & Technology

Germany

News from International Organizations

Recent Publications

Meetings Planned for 2000

Unlike the printed version of IFFN it is possible to link the Internet version with the continuously updated meetings site of the GFMC. Please click here for latest information on fire meetings.

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