<
https://medium.com/the-conversation/what-2-500-years-of-wildfire-evidence-and-the-extreme-fire-seasons-of-1910-and-2020-tell-us-about-e1241411faa7>
"Strong winds blew across mountain slopes after a record-setting warm, dry
summer. Small fires began to blow up into huge conflagrations. Towns in crisis
scrambled to escape as fires bore down.
This could describe any number of recent events, in places as disparate as
Colorado, California, Canada and Hawaii. But this fire disaster happened over
110 years ago in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana.
The “Big Burn” of 1910 still holds the record for the largest fire season in
the Northern Rockies. Hundreds of fires burned over 3 million acres — roughly
the size of Connecticut — most in just two days. The fires destroyed towns,
killed 86 people and galvanized public policies committed to putting out every
fire.
Today, as the climate warms, fire seasons like in 1910 are becoming more
likely. The 2020 fire season was an example. But are extreme fire seasons like
these really that unusual in the context of history? And, when fire activity
begins to surpass anything experienced in thousands of years — as research
suggests is happening in the Southern Rockies — what will happen to the
forests?
As paleoecologists, we study how and why ecosystems changed in the past. In a
multiyear project, highlighted in two new publications, we tracked how often
forest fires occurred in high-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountains over the
past 2,500 years, how those fires varied with the climate and how they affected
ecosystems. This long view provides both hopeful and concerning lessons for
making sense of today’s extreme fire events and impacts on forests."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
