Wildfire management

Land-based measures

Autumn at Mykland after forest fire 5 years ago

Fire is important to the healthy functioning of boreal ecosystems. However, as wildfires increase, they release greater amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. While boreal fires typically contribute 10% of global CO2 emissions, in 2021, an extreme fire year, they accounted for 23% of global emissions (Zheng et al. 2023). Particulate matter in wildfire smoke (soot or black carbon, see also Black carbon mitigation) can also reduce albedo on sea ice and glaciers, enhancing ice melt (e.g., Aubry-Wake et al. 2022). Wildfires are projected to increase in both frequency and intensity over the coming decades (UNEP 2022). By 2050, wildfires in North American boreal forests alone could contribute close to 12 Gt CO2, almost 3% of the remaining global CO2 emissions to keep temperatures to below 1.5oC (Phillips et al. 2022a).

As stated, wildfires are a natural and necessary part of forest systems, and it is not desirable, let alone possible, to suppress or prevent all fires. There are however several different ways to mitigate the effect of radically changing forest fire regimes. Increased fire management through fire suppression, risk reduction, or preventative burning can help return fire regimes to historical levels (Elder et al. 2022; Phillips et al. 2022a). In a recently presented paper at the EGU 2023, Kelly et al moreover suggest that management during the first years after a fire are important too, as they found that 'similar magnitudes of carbon were emitted as CO2 in the first 4 years after the fire compared to the carbon emitted during the fire itself'. Although this will not be discussed in this section, it has also been found in model studies that SAI could reduce forest fire risk (see Tang et al. (2023) and Stratospheric aerosol injection).

Technological Readiness Level (TRL)

High 3

Technologies and measures are currently available, and fire management has been historically practiced by indigenous communities (Hoffman et al, 2021).

Technological Readiness Level (TRL)

A technology with a TRL of 7-9: TRL 7 – prototype demonstrated; TRL 8 – system complete; TRL 9 – system proven

Scalability

Medium 2

Forest fire management would be more or less suitable in specific areas. Most fire management spending is focused on areas near human settlements, which makes the scalability of this measure limited in the vast areas of the Arctic that are unpopulated. In relation to proposals to use changes in forest management, reforestation and afforestation as climate mitigation measures (see elsewhere in this report), fire management could play an ever more important role in assuring the durability of such projects.

Scalability

Physically somewhat scalable; linear efficiency

Timeliness for near-future effects

High 3

The practices are already developed and could be implemented in order to mitigate the effect of boreal forest fires in the near future.

Timeliness for near-future effects

Implemented in time to make a significant difference

Northern + Arctic potential

High 3

The amount of GHG emissions from Boreal forests would be highlight dependant on the Earth’s warming trajectory, as Amiro et al (2009) show that in the case of Canadian boreal forest fires GHG emissions are 'estimated to increase from about 162 Tg·year–1 of CO2 equivalent in the 1×CO2 scenario to 313 Tg·year–1 of CO2 equivalent in the 3×CO2 scenario’.

However, significant emission increases and mitigation potential are to be expected. Phillips et al (2022) literature review reveals an expected increase in burned areas of ‘24 to 169% from 2020 to 2050 in Alaskan and 36 to 150% in Canadian boreal forests', and that this would lead to a release of 1.33 to 11.93 Gt of CO2, but that improved fire management could reduce this by '0.89 to 3.87 Gt of CO2 between 2021 and 2050.'

There will however be important regional differences in the importance of wildfire management strategies, as Högberg et al (2021) show that '[t]he area affected by fires was around 0.5 - 0.6 % per year in Alaska, Canada and Russia, which compares with around 0.01 % in the Nordic countries, a difference by a factor 50 - 60.'

Apart from the direct release of carbon due to combustion, fire management is especially important in the region to potential indirect effects. Black carbon emissions from forest fires could for example lead to decreases in albedo, and intensifying forest fires will also affect other GHG emitting processes in the region. Veraverbeke et al (2021) for instance emphasis the extra vulnerability of permafrost and peatlands under intensifying Arctic-Boreal fire regimes (see also peatland restoration and protection), whilst Ribeiro-Kumara et al (2020) highlight the complexity and potentially significant changes in soil GHG fluxes under changing boreal fire regimes.

Northern + Arctic potential

Very detectable impacts in the Arctic, above the global average; technology ideally/preferably located here

Global potential

Medium 2

By 2050, wildfires in North American boreal forests alone could contribute close to 12 Gt CO2, almost 3% of the remaining global CO2 emissions to keep temperatures to below 1.5oC (Phillips et al. 2022a). However, not all these emissions can be avoided with management practices.

Global potential

Statistically detectable impacts

Cost - benefit

Low 3

Phillips et al. (2022b) clearly states that it takes about US$12.63 to avoid one ton of CO2 emissions from fires in Alaska in comparison to $23-26 per ton for onshore wind power and $32-41 per ton for utility-scale solar power. It seems clear that the ‘costs of avoiding carbon dioxide emissions by means of increasing investment in fire management are comparable to or lower than those of other mitigation strategies” (Phillips et al. 2022a).///Two studies on requirements for Alaska however clearly indicate that Investments would need to increase: by a factor of four to reduce emissions from fires to historical levels (Phillips et al. 2022b), and ten-fold by 2100 under a high emissions scenario (Elder et al. 2022).

Cost - benefit

Low investment cost compared to the avoided damage cost (e.g., a few %) and/or inexpensive relative to other measures with similar impact

Environmental risks

Low 3

Overzealous fire suppression risks creating combustible material buildup and would prevent beneficial effects of fires to ecosystems.

Environmental risks

Very limited, site-specific effects restricted to the solution deployment location only

Community impacts

Beneficial 3

Many indigenous communities have historically already managed forest fires. Successful management strategies will likely create safer and more predictable circumstances, and could lead to major other benefits, most notably related to health improvements due to improved air quality.

Community impacts

Significant benefits to communities

Ease of reversibility

Easy 3

It is reversible by default

Ease of reversibility

Easily reversible naturally

Risk of termination shock

Low 3

If forest fires become too managed, it might be that the removal of such practices would lead to relatively rapid shifts in fire regimes.

Risk of termination shock

Low or insignificant termination shock or damage

Legality/governance

High 3

Forest fire management practices can be implemented on national territories. ///Current governance structures should however be rebalanced from reactive fire suppression towards proactive mitigation and management measures (UNEP 2022).

Legality/governance

Currently legal to deploy, with governance structures in place to facilitate it and/or financial incentives to develop it

Scientific/media attention

Medium 2

The importance of forest fires and their increasing frequency and intensity is increasingly recognised in and outside of academia. However, Philips et al (2022a) note that ‘[t]hus far, limiting boreal wildfires has not been explicitly considered as a climate mitigation strategy.’

Scientific/media attention

Some attention within the scientific community, including published research and funding programmes; some media attention; some commercial interest

References

Amiro, B. D., Cantin, A., Flannigan, M. D., & De Groot, W. J. (2009). Future emissions from Canadian boreal forest fires. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 39(2), 383-395. https://doi.org/10.1139/X08-154

Aubry-Wake, C., Bertoncini, A., & Pomeroy, J. W. (2022). Fire and ice: The impact of wildfire-affected albedo and irradiance on glacier melt. Earth's Future, 10, e2022EF002685. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002685

Elder, M., Phillips, C.A., Potter, S., Frumhoff, P.C. and Rogers, B.M. 2022. The costs and benefits of fire management for carbon mitigation in Alaska through 2100. Environ. Res. Lett. 17(10): 105001. https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac8e85.

Hoffman, K. M., Davis, E. L., Wickham, S. B., Schang, K., Johnson, A., Larking, T., ... & Trant, A. J. (2021). Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(32), e2105073118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105073118

Högberg, P., Ceder, L. A., Astrup, R., Binkley, D., Dalsgaard, L., Egnell, G., ... & Kraxner, F. (2021). Sustainable boreal forest management challenges and opportunities for climate change mitigation. Report from an Insight Process conducted by a team appointed by the International Boreal Forest Research Association (IBFRA). Report 2021/11. Swedish Forest Agency. ISBN 978-91-986297-3-6 Available at: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/17778/1/rapport-2021-11-sustainable-boreal-forest-management-challenges-and-opportunities-for-climate-change-mitigation-002.pdf [Accessed 19 July 2024]

Kelly, J., H. Doerr, S., D'Onofrio, C., Holst, T., Lehner, I., Lindroth, A., Santín, C., Soares, M., and Kljun, N. 2023. The two towers: CO2 fluxes after wildfire in managed Swedish boreal forest stands, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12028, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12028

Phillips, C.A., Rogers, B.M., Elder, M., Cooperdock, S., Moubarak, M., Randerson, J.T. and Frumhoff, P.C. 2022a. Escalating carbon emissions from North American boreal forest wildfires and the climate mitigation potential of fire management. Science Advances. 17(8): eabl7161. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl7161

Phillips, C.A., Rogers, B.M., Fletcher, M. and Frumhoff, P.C. 2022b. Limiting Carbon Emissions from Wildfires in North America’s Boreal Forests. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. https://ucsusa.org/resources/carbon-emissions-boreal-forest-wildfires

Ribeiro-Kumara, C., Pumpanen, J., Heinonsalo, J., Metslaid, M., Orumaa, A., Jõgiste, K., ... & Köster, K. (2020). Long-term effects of forest fires on soil greenhouse gas emissions and extracellular enzyme activities in a hemiboreal forest. Science of the Total Environment, 718, 135291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135291

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2022. Spreading like Wildfire – The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires. A UNEP Rapid Response Assessment. Nairobi. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading-wildfire-rising-threat-extraordinary-landscape-fires

Veraverbeke, S., Delcourt, C. J., Kukavskaya, E., Mack, M., Walker, X., Hessilt, T., ... & Scholten, R. C. (2021). Direct and longer-term carbon emissions from arctic-boreal fires: A short review of recent advances. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, 23, 100277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2021.100277

Zhao, B., Zhuang, Q., Shurpali, N. et al. North American boreal forests are a large carbon source due to wildfires from 1986 to 2016. Sci Rep 11, 7723 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87343-3

B. Zheng, P. Ciais, F. Chevallier, E. Chuvieco, Y. Chen, H. Yang, Increasing forest fire emissions despite the decline in global burned area. Sci. Adv.7, eabh2646 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abh2646

Zheng, B., Ciais, P., Chevallier, F., Yang, H., Canadell, J., Chen, Y. et al. 2023. Record-high CO2 emissions from boreal fires in 2021. Science. 379(6635): 912-917. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ade0805

Related ideas

Atmosphere / solar radiation

Space-based solar radiation management

GHG emissions reductions and future negative emissions are the only sustainable solutions to stabilize or even reverse global warming as they counter the cause of the problem. However, such actions will likely take a while to materialize, and inertia in the climate system and “baked-in” warming already ensures major changes in global temperatures and the nearing of several tipping points. Solar radiation management (SRM) techniques seek to reduce global temperatures by reflecting incoming solar radiation. They would thereby not fix the underlying issue of the warming effects of GHGs, but are according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Review on Solar Radiation Modification Research (2023) ‘the only known approach that could be used to cool the Earth within a few years’.

Industry

Arctic methane capture and usage

Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and its reduction is given ever greater priority in international emission reduction policies. Given the increasing, and potentially catastrophic rate of methane release from the thawing Arctic and Northern permafrost, these regions are crucial in this endeavor. Apart from the methane release from microbial activity in thawing permafrost on land, methane also escapes in the form of hydrates which have been formed under sediments beneath the sea.

Sea ice & icebergs

Ice shields and “volcanoes”

Arctic sea ice extent has rapidly decreased over the last few decades, with most multi-year ice disappearing altogether. This has already had major effects on local communities and ecosystems. The disappearance of the relatively reflective sea ice also leads to a dramatic decrease of albedo in the Arctic and subsequent high energy uptakes by the darker water during the Arctic summers.

Wetlands in Latvia - The Great Kemeri Bog

Land-based measures

Conservation and restoration of peatlands and wetlands in taiga and tundra

Wetlands and peatlands play important roles in global carbon cycles. Wetlands are areas that are seasonally covered by water. Globally mangroves are often the main topic of focus when it comes to wetlands (IPCC AR6 WG3, 2022, 7.4.2.8). In the Arctic and Northern regions, peatlands are important wetland elements, and will be the focus of what follows. Such peatlands are very carbon rich and store carbon in biomass below and above ground and in soil carbon. Although they only make up 3% of the Earth’s surface, peatlands store up to 21% of terrestrial carbon, and damaged peatlands contribute close to 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Leifeld et al. 2019). Peatland drainage between 1850 and 2015 has globally already released 80 Gt CO2-eq, and this figure may climb to 250 Gt CO2-eq by 2100 (Leifeld et al. 2019).

Compared to the global state of such areas, Arctic and Northern wetlands and peatlands remain relatively intact (UNEP 2021), and only around 2% of boreal peatlands are currently converted into croplands (Leifeld and Menichetti 2018). However, increasing attention is being paid to the importance of restoring destroyed areas, which make up 78% of total global peatlands, and preserving endangered ones, especially in light of the effects of climate change on such ecosystems. The Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands notes (CAFF 2021) therefore highlight the need for increased wetlands resilience to protect against future damage.

Land-based measures

Reindeer herding

In many Arctic and Northern regions, domesticated or semi-domesticated reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) are the only large herbivores (Uboni et al. 2016). Reindeer play a crucial role in these ecosystems and in the livelihoods and traditions of multiple local and indigenous populations. In light of the major impact of climate change in the Arctic, the capacity of large herbivores to mitigate some of these effects is being explored. Herbivores can have different climate positive effects as they can reduce shrubification and slow ecosystem responses to climate change (Olofsson and Post 2018; Happonen et al. 2021), modify summer and winter surface albedo (te Beest et al. 2016), trample winter snow to thicken permafrost (Beer et al. 2020; Windirsch et al. 2022), and increase biomass and soil carbon sequestration (Ylänne et al. 2018; Ylänne et al. 2021; see also soil management).

Oceans & marine

Re-oxygenating the Baltic

The deep waters in the Baltic are severely deoxygenated. Although the causes of the current state are complex, this is mainly a result of increased eutrophication from sewage and agricultural runoff from surrounding lands, which leads to extreme bioproductivity (Rolff et al. 2022). Some species manage to survive in the upper water layers, but many organisms living on the seafloor are severely impacted by the hypoxia, thereby influencing the health of a wide network of ecosystems and biochemical processes. There are attempts to reduce nutrient runoff into the Baltic (see for example: https://helcom.fi/baltic-sea-action-plan/). However, some argue these will be insufficient and argue for engineering solutions to the issue.

Ice sheets and glaciers

Stabilizing glaciers by cloud seeding

Up to 50% of the world’s glaciers are set to disappear this century, with many more at risk if emission reduction targets are not met (Rounce et al. 2023).

Sea ice & icebergs

Iceberg management

With rising Arctic temperatures, there have been major changes in iceberg production rates of marine terminating glaciers. These icebergs drift into warmer sea waters where they will slowly melt.