In 2023, forest fires destroyed nearly 4 billion hectares of forest, killed more than 250 people and caused the release of 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Killing and uncontrollable: in 2023, wildfires destroyed nearly 4 billion acres of forestkilled more than 250 people and caused the release of 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Fires of historic proportions in Canada
The American continent experienced this year a record-breaking wildfire season, with nearly 800 million acres burned by December 23; that’s more than one and a half times the area of Spain, 100 million more than the 2012-2022 annual average on the same date, according to the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS).
The biggest disaster occurred in Canada, where 180 million hectares of forest burned this year.
It was fires that fueled by drought and heat caused by climate change and ‘runaway’as “the extinguishing tactics proved to be ineffective,” explains Pauline Villen-Carlotti, PhD in geography and fire expert, to AFP.
“We are no longer capable of dealing with them, in today’s conditions, with our human means, hence the importance of acting rather in advance, in prevention, rather than after the fact, in combat and extinguishment,” he continues.
A killer year
Ninety-seven dead and 31 missing in August’s wildfires in Hawaii34 dead in Algeria, 28 in Greece… The year was the deadliest of the 21st century, according to the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) of the Catholic University of Louvain, with more than 250 dead.
“This is an excessive mortality that risks increasing in the coming years,” with fires “coming dangerously close to cities,” points out Pauline Villen-Carlotti. In August, the tourist town of Lahaina in Maui, Hawaii, was almost completely destroyed by fire.
And this year, in addition to the zones that are generally exposed, such as the Mediterranean basin (Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria…), North America or Australia, other regions, which have been spared until now, such as Hawaii or Tenerife, suffered disasters – increasing the number of people at risk and affecting the most vulnerable populations.
Six million tons of carbon dioxide
The more fires multiply, the less time vegetation has to regrow and the more forests can lose their ability to absorb carbon dioxide. “According to recent studies, wildfires reduce carbon storage by about 10%,” explains Solène Tirketti, researcher at LATMOS (Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations spatiales).
In addition, when trees burn, they suddenly release all the carbon dioxide – a gas that causes the greenhouse effect – that they had stored into the atmosphere.
However, the impact is relative: since the beginning of the year, forest fires released about 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), against 36.8 billion tons coming from the use of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal…) and cement.
In general, about 80% of the carbon created by wildfires is then reabsorbed by vegetation that grows back the following season. The remaining 20%, on the contrary, contributes to the enhancement of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, fueling the rise in temperature in a kind of vicious cycle.
Direct health impact
In addition to carbon dioxide, forest fires and fires in areas with low vegetation release a whole range of pathogenic particles, from carbon monoxide to a whole range of other gases or aerosols (ashes, soot…).
“These emissions change air quality enormously, hundreds of kilometers away in the most severe fires,” says Solenn Tirketi, pointing to “an immediate health impact,” which is added “to the destruction of ecosystems, goods and infrastructure.”
According to a study published in September in the journal Nature, the populations of the poorest countries, primarily in central Africa, are much more exposed to air pollution caused by these fires, than those in developed countries.
The special case of Africa
Africa is the continent in which the largest areas have burned since the beginning of time (almost 2.120 billion hectares), but for Pauline Villen-Carlotti we should not “give too much weight to these African fires”, because this number does not reflect “large forest fires”.
These are probably small “rural fires”, “a traditional practice which does not particularly harm the forests because the fires are controlled” and is applied in a circular way, says the expert.
They have an impact on the local flora and fauna, but in the medium term “the trees will regrow allowing a renewal in general” of vegetation, an increase in plant diversity, he adds.
The possibility of regeneration of burnt surfaces really depends on the frequency of fires in the same piece of land and on the intensity of the fires.
Source: Skai
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