Doused In Flames
Diving back into the Olympic size swimming pool of future fire literature
You thought I was done collecting papers but not really reading them? Not a chance. I refuse to throw in the towel!
Interfacin’
Planas et al. 2023 Fires at the wildland-industrial interface. Is there an emerging problem?
You’ve heard of the WUI (wildland urban interface). Meet the WII. Wheee!
In answer to the titular question: Yes :(
Moreira-Munoz et al. 2023 Spatial dynamics in the urban-rural-natural interface within a social-ecological hotspot
Three hyphens in a title! (and that’s not including multiple double barrel author names!)
Forget WUI, forget WII, there’s a new acronym in town. If there’s a fire then you’re going to need a (gulp) URN
Fire and its drivers
Magaritz-Ronen & Raveh-Rubin 2023 Tracing the formation of exceptional fronts driving historical fire in Southeast Australia
Exceptional use of the word exceptional
Fronts are super important. There has been talk for a long time about building metrics related to cold fronts into climate change projections. It’s coming
Pais et al. 2023 The REMAINS R-package: paving the way for fire-landscape modeling and management
Always good to see new models hit the scene.
I might need to add this one to the list for the lit review we are doing for our What Makes A Good Fire Simulator project
Note the single l in modeling. This will eff up your searches if you’re not careful, people.
Odwuor et al. 2023 Evidence for multi-decadal fuel buildup in a large California wildfire from smoke radiocarbon measurements
I love it when a scientific method has an almost magical quality. Imagine explaining to ye olde humans that we can estimate the age of the trees that burnt in a fire, using smoke from the fire and nothing else. Crazy.
And also, think of the possibilities, Jerry! So many possible applications of this.
Rao et al. 2023 Dry live fuels increase the likelihood of lightning-caused fires
Another California wildfire paper
The same authors (minus one) hit the heights of Nature Ecology and Evolution last year with their paper Plant water sensitivity regulates wildfire vulnerability. The killer lines from that one:
Here we show that for the same increase in VPD, burned area increases more in regions where vegetation moisture shows greater sensitivity to water limitation (plant-water sensitivity; R2 = 0.71).
This has led to rapid increases in human exposure to wildfire risk, both because the population living in areas with high plant-water sensitivity grew 50% faster during 1990–2010 than in other wildland–urban interfaces and because VPD has risen most rapidly in these vulnerable areas.
ANU fire superstar Marta Yebra is one of the co-authors.
Kalashnikov et al. 2023 Lightning-ignited wildfires in the Western United States: ignition precipitation and associated environmental conditions
Dry lightning
I spoke with News Ltd journo David Mills the other day about dry lightning. He was kind enough to share a copy of the paywalled article with me, but I’m not allowed to share it with you. The extent of my wisdom was to summarise the findings of another paper by Aussie fire weather legend Andrew Dowdy.
Bleiman et al. 2023 Refining fire-climate relationship methodologies: Southern California
A methods paper!
Another California paper
Two of the authors are from Southern California Edison. It’s not often you see authors outside academia, at least in my neck of the field.
Drucker et al. 2023 A live fuel moisture climatology in California
Another California paper
I like how Frontiers journals tell you who the reviewers were
Xiang et al. 2023 Global distribution, trends and types of active fire occurences
Ambitious undertaking (as I know from my energy-sapping dalliance with global fire analysis)
Some of the figures are not easy on the eye
Plucinski et al. 2023 Exploring the influence of the Keetch-Byram Drought Index and McArthur’s Drought Factor on wildfire incidence in Victoria, Australia
Matt Plucinski kindly dropped into our workshop on What Makes A Good Fire Simulator last week. He has been a big part of the Australian bushfire research community for some time, in ignition and suppression modelling among other areas
KBDI and DF are truly the zombies of the fire danger index world. No matter how many times they are criticised, they refuse to die and keep popping back up again.
McGinnis et al. 2023 Future regional increases in simultaneous large Western USA wildfires
Nothing good can come of increasing simultaneity
Fire management
Kramer et al. 2023 Projected smoke impacts from increased prescribed fire activity in California’s high wildfire risk landscape
I’m starting to see a little pushback to the ‘prescribed burning good, do more of it everywhere’ school in the US.
I hasten to add, this doesn’t mean that the paper says prescribed fire is bad and shouldn’t be done (I doubt it says that). Rather, we need to be honest about costs and benefits (and uncertainty)
The phrase ‘high wildfire risk’ is somewhat unsatisfying. I really want to put the word risk straight after high, but that doesn’t quite work either. Now I know why ‘fire-prone’ is so common. Absolutely rolls off the tongue.
Bowman and McCormack 2023 Arrested policy development of private fire shelters (fire bunkers) is a barrier to adaptation to the Australian bushfire crisis
I had a nice chat with Phillipa McCormack at the Melbourne Climate Futures Summit last week. It’s great to see some lawyers getting in on the fire action. We need more of this.
Paveglio and Edgeley 2023 Variable support and opposition to fuels treatments for wildfire risk reduction: melding frameworks for local context and collaborative potential
Wang et al. 2023 Local and utility-wide cost allocations for a more equitable wildfire-resilient distribution grid
Nature Energy (Nature stable journal #672)
Another California paper
California has an overflowing history of powerline (and powerline company) issues
Nice to see equity front and centre here
Jones et al. 2023 Transitional forestry in New Zealand: re-evaluating the design and management of forest systems through the lens of forest purpose
I already struggle with the emotion and intensity of the debate around prescribed burning, cultural fire, arson, urban planning and so on. Thank God I’m not a forestry researcher.
Speaking of purpose, you’ve heard of Not For Profit, you’ve heard of Profit For Purpose. Allow me to introduce: Not For Purpose. It’s an idea whose time has come. Join me.
Sigh
Legge et al. 2023 Loss of terrestrial biodiversity in Australia: magnitude, causation, and response
Not so sure about the Oxford comma
This is the team that brought you the recent book on Australia’s Megafires, including a chapter featuring yours truly (link broken for me at the moment - duck duck go it)
What a depressing topic
Fire impact modelling
Chakrabarty et al. 2023 Shortwave absorption by wildfire smoke dominated by dark brown carbon
The mysterious world of smoke aerosol radiative forcing and climate models (yes, bushfire smoke affects weather and climate)
Kabeshita et al. 2023 Pathways framework identifies wildfire impacts on agriculture
Nature Food (Nature stable journal #831)
I should be reading this paper if I want to start some collaborations with my new(ish) colleagues in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences here at Melbourne Uni
You know I’m going straight for the concept figure