Climate change will cause more forest fires
Climate change will cause more forest fires
19 August 2009
published by austriantimes.at
Austria — Austria must prepare for more drought and forest fires in the future because of climate change, a top climate expert has warned.
Harald Vacik, a professor at the Vienna Institute for Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), said today (Weds) Austrian forests could become “an eco-system endangered by forest fires”.
He pointed to the 24 forest fires in Austria during unusually dry and warm weather in April as an example of what the country could face in the future.
Vacik also said unusually wet and humid weather beginning in May had reduced the danger of forest fires for the time being.
He added his institute and Viennas Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics /ZAMG) would participate in the EU Alpine Forest Fire Warning System (ALP FFIRS).
ZAMG and BOKU would use their participation in ALP FFIRS to study the frequency, location and danger of forest fires in Austria, Vacik said.
The national goal would be to improve predictions of forest fires to help firemen prepare for them by taking weather conditions, vegetation and socio-ecological factors into account in cooperation with other Alpine countries, he noted.
