Under fire

In the current Shibumi article we are going to talk about the forest fires that have recently taken place widely and their relationship with climate change. Also, we will write which fires has been or are active in the present, what causes them, the negative effects and what we can do to help reduce those mentioned forest fires.

Global warming and climate change

Before starting, it is necessary to know the diference between climate change and global warming and why they are so important. Global warming is the main cause of climate change. Harmful gas emissions into the atmosphere are derived from human activity on earth, this process causes variations in the climate and it leads to a noticeable increase in temperature in a short period of time. The rapid increase in population causes greenhouse gases to increase because more resources are needed.

The relationship between climate change a forest fires

The question is, are the climate change and the recent forest fires linkes? According to “The European Forest Fire Information System” (EFFIS) more than the 95% of fires in Europe have been caused by human activity. Dr. Matthew. Jones, A climatologist at the University of East Anglia, assures that “Heat waves and droughts are exacerbated by climate change and are absolutely the defining factor in years with massive wildfire outbreaks, like the current one.” He also asserts that forest management affects fires. Moreover, the climatologist Friederike Elly Luise Otto, a full professor at Imperial College London and former associate director of the Institute for Environmental Change at the University of Oxford, endorses that “Basically, there are three important ingredients for fires: high temperatures, dryness and strong winds.” Nowadays, the dry seassons are long-lived and the global warming fuels the duration and intensity of forest fires. As the Union of Concerned Scientists in “Is Global Warming Fueling Increased Wildfire Risks?” endorse “Wildfires can be weather events affected by climate. If this is not the case, climate change cannot cause a fire itself, but it can increase the chances of a forest fire, which will be more intense, larger and longer.”

Current data on forest fires

According to the newspaper “El País”, between the 10th and 21st of July, 115.300 hectares have burned, and that data is only in Spain. Moreover, the named newspaper says that the number of fires this year is unusual, with a count of more than 300 fires since January compared to 82 on average.

In The United States, the fire on Saturday July 23 near Yosemite National Park has become one of the largest fires in California this year, with more than 2,500 hectares buried under fire. Daniel Swain, a climatologist from the University of California assures the fast spread of fire in all directions and signals extreme drought.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) collects all its data from incidents such as wildfires, floods, earthquakes, etc. The data collected shows that there have been more than 4,500 forest fires with over 21,513 hectares destroyed.

If you want to know about active forest fires, NASA has publicly shared the data obtained by satellites. This helps us to know the approximate location of forest fires and the volume of the fire. We leave you the link of the website in the references.

Consequences of climate change

In the first place, climate change destroys entire ecosystems, such as forests, jungles and oceans. The devastation of these ecosystems is detrimental since; on the one hand, it is the forests and jungles that absorb CO2 and return oxygen to the atmosphere and on the other hand, the oceans also absorb CO2. Not only that, an increase in temperature also implies catastrophes that are linked, for example; the melting of the glaciers of the poles (north and south) causes an increase in sea level and this leads to floods and threats to the coasts.

Secondly, this climate variation also facilitates forest fires.The bigger is a fire, the more CO2 the trees emit when burning. These release a large amount of all the carbon that they have been holding for decades, or even hundreds of years. The forest fire emits a large amount of harmful gasses to the atmosphere. However, fires not only affect the atmosphere, they are also harmful to the fauna and flora that live on the affected land. In addition, climate change puts at risk and affects the health of the people who inhabit the earth.

Ways to help reduce climate change

Together we can help create a more sustainable planet and fix the disaster we have caused to our own earth. The actions that can most help combat climate change are:

Reduce waste; choose to reuse bottles or cups instead of single-use containers.
Reduce meat consumption; choosing a balanced diet based on mainly vegetables helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Take care of the waste of electricity and water; switch to LED or low-consumption light bulbs and avoid unnecessary excess consumption of water.
Choose to buy local and seasonal products.
Choose products from ecological brands, with production on demand, recycled packaging and local production, like Shibumi.