A WCS-coauthored study reveals that global mountain forests – critically important to wildlife – are vanishing at an accelerating rate with an area twice the size of Norway lost between 2001-2018.
New research shows that as wildfires are increasing in frequency, intensity and extent, and affecting air quality across the U.S., they are having a detrimental effect on people with and without skin conditions.
Data shows that between 2016-2020, at least five of the top 20 most destructive California wildfires started from power systems. Paired with the extreme weather conditions and nearby vegetation, power system-ignited incidents are more likely to develop into large, intense wildfires.
When wildfire strikes a community, it can leave a path of destruction, and a chance for renewal. During the fire and in the immediate aftermath, residents and officials focus on protection and stabilization efforts. However, the availability of resources to support community recovery and promote resilience to future fires over the longer-term is less certain.
We need a better understanding of the particles emitted by wildfires, including how they evolve, so we can improve our predictions of their impacts on climate, climate change, and human health. Atmospheric scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions recently published a study that suggests the global climate models aren’t getting the full picture. Their data could change that.
Tiny particles in Earth’s atmosphere can have a big impact on climate. But understanding exactly how these aerosol particles form cloud drops and affect the absorption and scattering of sunlight is one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in climate models. Ogochukwu (Ogo) Enekwizu is trying to tame that complexity by creating soot-seeded aerosol particles in a lab.
Carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires, which have been gradually increasing since 2000, spiked drastically to a record high in 2021, according to an international team of researchers led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine.
UC Davis researchers have been awarded $1.35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the health impacts of wildfire smoke on pregnant people and children.
The number of active fires recorded in the Brazilian Amazon in August-September 2022 was the highest since 2010, according to an article published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
For the first time, researchers have developed a machine learning-based ensemble approach to quantify fire-induced thaw settlement across the entire Tanana Flats in Alaska, which encompasses more than 3 million acres. They linked airborne repeat lidar data to time-series Landsat products (satellite images) to delineate thaw settlement patterns across six large fires that have occurred since 2000. The six fires resulted in a loss of nearly 99,000 acres of evergreen forest from 2000 to 2014 among nearly 155,000 acres of fire-influenced forests with varying degrees of burn severity. This novel approach helped to explain about 65 percent of the variance in lidar-detected elevation change.
More than 1,000 pets perished in the Dec. 30 Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colo., many of them trapped inside their homes as guardians who had left for the day desperately tried to devise a plan to free them, according to new CU Boulder research published in the journal Animals.
UC Riverside researchers have identified tiny organisms that not only survive but thrive during the first year after a wildfire. The findings could help bring land back to life after fires that are increasing in both size and severity.
More than three times as many houses and other structures burned in Western wildfires in 2010-2020 than in the previous decade, and that wasn’t only because more acreage burned, a new analysis has found.
A new conceptual framework for incorporating the way plants use carbon and water, or plant dynamics, into fine-scale computer models of wildland fire provides a critical first step toward improved global fire forecasting.
Five years after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, UC San Diego researchers document persistent differences in cognitive function among survivors.
Seasonal temperature, moisture loss from plants and wind speed are what primarily drive fires that sweep across the same landscape multiple times, a new study reveals. These findings and others could help land managers plan more effective treatments in areas susceptible to fire, particularly in the fire-ravaged wildland-urban interfaces of California.
Combining satellite technology with machine learning may allow scientists to better track and prepare for climate-induced natural hazards, according to research presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Emergency preparedness in nursing homes should be commensurate with local environmental risks to ensure residents’ safety, but new research in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that nursing homes in California that face a greater risk of wildfire exposure have poorer compliance with Medicare’s emergency preparedness standards.
Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study led by SMU suggests bringing “good fire” back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today’s wildfires.
Americans are leaving many of the U.S. counties hit hardest by hurricanes and heatwaves—and moving towards dangerous wildfires and warmer temperatures, says one of the largest studies of U.S. migration and natural disasters. These results are concerning, as wildfire and rising temperatures are projected to worsen with climate change. The study was inspired by the increasing number of headlines of record-breaking natural disasters.
Western wildfires have been increasing over the last decade and are expected to become more frequent. As a result, communities are seeing more unhealthy air days. In southern Oregon, Jackson County is creating a smoke management community response plan with the help of two University of Oregon graduate students.
As strong winds and torrential rains inundate Australia’s south-eastern coast, new research suggests that high intensity bushfires might not be too far behind, with their dual effects extending damage zones and encroaching on previously low-risk residential areas.
The warming during the summer months in Europe has been much faster than the global average, shows a new study by researchers at Stockholm University published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.
A Brazilian study shows that the number of fires detected in the entire Amazon region between 2003 and 2020 was influenced more by uncontrolled human use of fire than by drought.
The study finds that more frequent and intense western wildfires are not only impacting the air quality and visibility in surrounding areas, but also as far away as the East Coast.
Los Angeles is known for its movie stars and beaches. It’s also known for being one of only two megacities in the world that supports a population of big cats.
A new study shows for the first time that wildfires burning in West Coast states can strengthen storms in downwind states. Heat and tiny airborne particles produced by western wildfires distantly intensify severe storms, in some cases bringing baseball-sized hail, heavier rain and flash flooding to states like Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas.
A new analysis led by researchers with the University of California has found the 2020 wildfires in the state, the most disastrous wildfire year on record, put twice as much greenhouse gas emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere as the total reduction in such pollutants in California between 2003-2019.
The number of trout in a southern Oregon stream system showed no decline one year after a fire burned almost the entire watershed, including riparian zone trees that had helped maintain optimal stream temperatures for the cold-water fish.
Laughing gas is no laughing matter — nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas with 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. Scientists are racing to learn whether microorganisms send more of it into the atmosphere after wildfires.
The use of virtual fencing to manage cattle grazing on sagebrush rangelands has the potential to create fuel breaks needed to help fight wildfires, a recent Oregon State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service study found.
New research from the University of Georgia revealed that mixed land use – such as developments interspersed with forest patches – improves bee diversity and is leading to new solutions for bee conservation. The researchers hypothesized that development would negatively affect bee diversity, but the results of the study were surprising. They found that small amounts of development actually had a positive impact on the number of bee species present in a given area.
Dean Matt Auer will testify as a witness for the House Financial Services Committee hearing entitled, “State of Emergency: Examining the Impact of Growing Wildfire Risk on the Insurance Market” on September 22 at 9:00 am
The role of microbes in the carbon cycle is likely to shift as microbial communities respond to environmental shocks such as drought and wildfire. This research studied how depth below the ground surface affects bacterial communities’ resistance to these shocks. It found that bacterial communities closer to the soil surface were more sensitive to drought and fire, suggesting that deeper soils may serve as a refuge.
Smoke from a Siberian wildfire may have transported enough nitrogen to parts of the Arctic Ocean to amplify a phytoplankton bloom. The work sheds light on some potential ecological effects from Northern Hemisphere wildfires, particularly as these fires become larger, longer and more intense.
RICHLAND, Wash.—The dangers of inhaling smoke are well established. Many people do their best to avoid breathing it in. But what about when the smoke comes to you?As wildfires burn in record numbers, their smoke can infiltrate homes, creeping through cracks and imperfect seals to find its way into our fragile lungs. That’s why buildings scientist Chrissi Antonopoulos, from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is sharing the most up-to-date advice on how to protect you and your family from wildfire smoke when indoors.
The trees in Northern California’s Klamath Mountains are not keeping up with climate change. Instead, many tree species are in decline, losing the race due to climate warming and decades of fire suppression.
New research published in the Australian Journal of Rural Health has shown people who are forced to relocate after a bushfire are at a higher risk of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD. Led by Associate Professor Venkatesan Thiruvenkatarajan from the University of Adelaide, and Dr Richard Watts from Flinders University, the researchers spoke with people affected by the 2005 “Black Tuesday” Eyre Peninsula bushfires, which took nine lives, destroyed 93 homes and blackened 80,000 hectares of land near Port Lincoln on 11 January, 2005.
As climate change leads to larger and more frequent wildfires, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using sensors, drones and machine learning to both prevent fires and reduce their damage to the electric grid. Engineers are honing technology to remotely sense electrical arcing and faulty equipment, as well as the direction of spreading fires.
From uncovering where best to apply controlled burns to protecting energy infrastructure from outer space, scientists at PNNL are using their research to get an edge on tomorrow's wildfires.
A new study has found dry lightning outbreaks are the leading cause of some of the largest wildfire outbreaks in modern California history. Despite this, dry lightning has remained largely understudied across this region – until now.