Wild fires likely to spread due to global warming

Sylvia Westall, Reuters 17 Apr 08;

VIENNA (Reuters) - Wild fires are likely to be bigger, more frequent and burn for longer as the world gets hotter, in turn speeding up global warming to create a dangerous vicious circle, scientists say.

The process is being studied as part of work to develop a detailed map of global fire patterns which will be used with climate models to predict future fire trends.

The scientists told a geoscience conference in Vienna they already predict fires will increase and could spread to previously fire-free parts of the world as the climate changes.

"An increase in fire may be the greatest early impact of climate change on forests," Brian Amiro from the University of Manitoba said late on Wednesday.

"Our forests are more likely to become a victim of climate change than a savior," he added.

Last year more than 200 wild fires swept across parts of southeastern Europe, destroying homes and devouring woodland. In Greece 65 people died.

Amiro said global warming will cause more fires which as they burn contribute to global warming by producing greenhouse gases.

"Fire avoids environmental extremes, like the deserts, tundra and rainforests," said Max Moritz from the University of California, Berkley.

"But there are some predictions which show there could be fires in deserts and there are worries they may occur in tropical rainforests if they were drier," he said.

Forests are natural carbon stores, some built up over millions of years, but as they burn they release the carbon quickly in the form of carbon dioxide.

Scientists already estimate that Canadian wild fires will double in area by the end of the century and that the fire season will be longer.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

Mediterranean forest fires set to become 'norm': green group
Yahoo News 17 Apr 08;

Greece's lethal forest fires of last year are set to become the norm across the Mediterranean thanks to climate change, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned Thursday.

Nearly 70 people were killed and 150,000 hectares (370,000 acres) of forest burnt to the ground in last August's fires, which were exacerbated by failings in the Greek firefighting emergency services.

"The most immediate and obvious repercussion of climate change for the Mediterranean forests is an increase in fires, which will also become more intense and widespread," a regional official from the WWF, Nora Berahmouni, said at an Athens conference.

The meeting of more than 30 experts on the subject agreed unanimously that higher temperatures, prolonged droughts and fierce storms would leave the forests more combustible.

Berahmouni called for action before it was too late to halt a "vicious circle" where less forest coverage due to climate change risks exacerbating the effects of global warming.

"Protecting forests must also now mean allowing them to adapt to global warming," said Greek forester Aristotle Papageorgiou, pleading for both more money and a root-and-branch reorganisation of the entire system of fighting forest fires.

Serious failings in the Greek system were blamed for not extinguishing the fires sooner, although a dry winter and a succession of heatwaves were contributing factors.