The effect of climate change on indicators of fire danger in the UK

Abstract

The UK is vulnerable to wildfire, and vulnerability is likely to increase due to climate change. Whilst the risk is small compared with many other countries, recent fires have raised awareness and highlighted the potential for environmental damage and loss of property and key infrastructure. Most UK wildfires are a result of inadvertent or deliberate human action, but the environmental conditions depend on antecedent and current weather. This paper presents projections of the effects of climate change on UK wildfire danger, using a version of an operational fire danger model, UKCP18 climate projections representing low and high emissions, and several indicators of fire danger. Fire danger will increase across the whole of the UK, but the extent and variability in change varies with indicator. The absolute danger now and into the future is greatest in the south and east (the average number of danger days increases 3–4 times by the 2080s), but danger increases further north from a lower base. The variation in change across the UK for indicators based on absolute thresholds is determined by how often those thresholds are exceeded now, whilst the (lesser) variability in percentile-based indicators reflects variability in the projected change in climate. Half of the increase in danger is due to increased temperature, and most of the rest is due to projected reductions in relative humidity. Uncertainty in the magnitude of the change is due to uncertainty in changes in temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall, and there is a large difference between two of the UKCP18 climate model ensembles. Reducing emissions to levels consistent with achieving international climate policy targets significantly reduces, but does not eliminate, the increase in fire danger. The results imply that greater attention needs to be given to wildfire danger in both emergency and spatial planning, and in the development of guidelines for activities that may trigger fires. They suggest the need for the development of a fire danger system more tailored to UK conditions, and the combination of fire danger modelling with projections of sources of ignition to better estimate the change in wildfire risk.

Assessing the exposure of UK habitats to 20th‐ and 21st‐century climate change, and its representation in ecological monitoring schemes

“…Secondly, and conversely, our findings also demonstrate that the ecosystem effects of climate change may well be significant in areas of the UK traditionally considered less vulnerable. Central, southern and eastern England is predicted to experience the UK's greatest climate change (Figure 2), including the development in the 21st century of climate types that have historically been absent from the UK (Figure 1; Arnell et al, 2021; Christidis et al, 2020). This leaves semi‐natural habitats like calcareous grassland—as well as anthropogenic areas such as urban, suburban and arable and horticultural land—which are relatively widespread in these areas, highly exposed to climate change (Figure 3), and at risk of undergoing significant ecological change.…”

Exploring Forest Fire Dynamics: Fire Danger Mapping in Antalya Region, Türkiye

“…These three subcomponents collectively describe fuel conditions, ranging from the surface to deeper soil layers, encompassing litter and organic layers [2]. Some research studies noted that the combination of FFMCs with a high ISI was more effective in predicting fire occurrences for specific fuel sources compared to the overall FWI [26,72,73]. Since fuel moisture codes integrate the previous day's values, initial values need to be determined; these specific values-85 for FFMC, 6 for DMC and 15 for DC-are documented in the literature [71,74].…”

Initial ecological change in plant and arthropod community composition after wildfires in designated areas of upland peatlands

“…Drained and drying boreal peatland subject to wildfires release more carbon into the atmosphere with global consequences (Harris et al, 2020 ; Lin et al, 2021 ). Whilst most severe impacts may occur in higher latitudes and hotter, drier climates, increased temperature and decreased precipitation in summer months in temperate countries (Blenkinsop & Fowler, 2007 ; Murphy & Fealy, 2010 ) may also result in significantly more, higher intensity wildfires (Albertson et al, 2011 ; Arnell et al, 2021 ). European wildfires are predominantly anthropogenic in origin with more than 95% of wildfires started by people (Birot, 2009 ; McMorrow et al, 2009 ).…”