Changing Fire Regimes and Ecosystem Impacts in a Shifting Climate (Hantson et al. 2024, One Earth)
June 21, 2024
In this publication from 2024, GWC Charter Member, Stijn Hantson, and colleagues, examine how global fire regimes are departing from historical patterns under the combined pressures of climate change and human activity. Warming temperatures, prolonged drought, and land-use changes are creating conditions for more frequent, severe, and spatially extensive fires.
The paper highlights that these shifts vary across biomes and are altering key ecological processes—from vegetation recovery and species composition to carbon storage and hydrological cycles. Such feedbacks may further amplify warming and ecosystem degradation.
The authors emphasize the need to move beyond managing for historical baselines toward adaptive approaches that account for emerging fire–climate–vegetation dynamics. Integrating fire ecology with climate mitigation and land management policies will be critical for maintaining ecosystem resilience in the coming decades.
Read the publication: Changing fire regimes: Ecosystem impacts in a shifting climate - ScienceDirect
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Our good friends Fanny Tricone @ftricone and Ameyali Ramos of our partner organization, International Savanna Fire Management Initiative, recently published an article in IUCN’s Policy Matters journal about the importance of centering traditional fire management knowledge in shaping integrated fire management strategies.
“For centuries, Indigenous and local communities have used fire as a tool for managing landscapes, shaping ecosystems, and sustaining livelihoods (Huffman, 2016; International Savanna Fire Management Initiative (ISFMI), n.d.). However, in the Americas and other regions of the world, fire management has been shaped by a colonial legacy that has largely repressed traditional knowledge in favour of rigid fire suppression policies (Pyne, 2015). These fire exclusion policies, driven by European models of land control, have had catastrophic consequences: the build-up of combustible vegetation, the loss of firedependent ecosystems, and the increasing severity of wildfires (Myers, 2006). The failure of fire exclusion is now widely evident, demanding an urgent rethinking of how fire is understood and managed.”
See page 47: https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/Policy-Matters-Issue-24.pdf
Publication from GWC charter member, Dr. Saeedeh Eskandari!
10 January 2025
ABSTRACT
Iran is a fire-prone country because of its climatic conditions. An extensive area of the forests and pastures of this country has been burned by wildfires in recent decades. Golestan province in northeastern Iran is the most fire-affected region in Iran in terms of fire frequency and extent. Therefore, the current study was done to evaluate the spatio-temporal relationships among meteorological factors and fires in this region in recent years. For this purpose, regression analysis and machine learning models were applied. The fire regime statistics were frequency and extent of fires, while meteorological variables were mean temperature, maximum temperature, absolute maximum temperature, mean precipitation, mean relative humidity, mean wind speed, and maximum wind speed in fire season for a 26-year period. For analyzing the temporal relationships between fire statistics and meteorological variables, Pearson’s correlation was applied. For those significant correlations between fire statistics and meteorological variables, the regression relationships were calculated. For spatial relationships between fire statistics and meteorological variables, machine learning models were used. First, a fire map of Golestan province was created by fire data available in Golestan Natural Resources and Watershed Administration (GNRWA) and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor. The maps of meteorological variables were also prepared by Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) procedure in GIS. The spatial role of meteorological variables on fire susceptibility was determined by Mean Decrease Gini (MDG) and Mean Decrease Accuracy (MDA) parameters. Four machine learning methods (support vector machine, random forest, logistic regression, and SVM-RF methods) and 70% of fire occurrences were applied for spatial modeling and mapping of fire susceptibility in the study area. Area Under the Curve (AUC) and 30% of fire occurrences were used for evaluating the model’s performance. The findings demonstrated that 4466 fires have been occurred in the study area, burning 14,907.09 hectares of natural areas in Golestan province for 26 years. The findings of temporal relationships revealed the significant relationships between frequency of fires and mean temperature, maximum temperature, absolute maximum temperature, mean precipitation, mean wind speed, and maximum wind speed in fire season during 26 years. In addition, significant relationships were observed among extent of fires and mean precipitation, and mean relative humidity in fire season. The results of spatial relationships showed that absolute maximum temperature, mean precipitation, and mean relative humidity had the most importances in fire susceptibility in the study area. Validation of fire susceptibility maps demonstrated that RF and SVM-RF methods (AUC: 0.83) were the most precise models for fire susceptibility mapping in the study area. Therefore, forecasting the future fires in Golestan province is possible based on these maps. Results of this study depict the effective role of long-term climate change (mainly increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation) on fire occurrence, fire frequency, and fire extent in natural areas of Golestan province in northeastern Iran. Among all climatic factors, temperature was the most important parameter in fire regime in both temporal and spatial scales. Increasing temperature due to climate change and global warming can change the patterns of fire regime in the study area over time and space. Therefore, protective management of forests and pastures of Golestan province against fire is necessary especially in the warmer locations during fire season at spatio-temporal scale.
Check out the full publication!
From Forest to Fireweed
September 19, 2025
In this article featuring GWC Charter Member, Dr. Mike Flannigan, the 2024 Jasper Wildfire Complex is examined as a case study of extreme fire behavior in a rapidly warming climate. Although the blaze consumed only 33,000 hectares of Jasper National Park, its intensity was unprecedented, generating a pyrocumulonimbus storm and possibly Canada’s second-ever fire tornado. Dr. Flannigan, who has studied wildfire and climate interactions for decades, noted that phenomena once considered rare are now increasingly common as conditions grow hotter and drier.
The article traces how over a century of fire suppression policies and climate-driven drying have combined to create highly combustible landscapes across the Canadian Rockies. Researchers like Flannigan and UBC’s Lori Daniels emphasize that Canada’s fire seasons are now longer and more severe, with burned area quadrupling since the 1960s. Recovery in Jasper will take decades—and in some places, may never occur—underscoring the need for proactive management, including prescribed fire, restoration of landscape mosaics, and urgent reductions in fossil fuel emissions.
Read the article: From Forest to Fireweed | Sierra Club
History shows why FEMA is essential in disasters, and how losing independency hurt its capability
October 16, 2025
In this article, GWC Charter Member Dr. Susan Cutter, Director of the Hazards Vulnerability & Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina, reviews FEMA’s history and its critical role in U.S. disaster response. She traces the evolution of federal disaster management from ad hoc local relief efforts—highlighted by the 1927 Mississippi Flood and Dust Bowl—to the creation of FEMA in 1979, designed as an independent agency to coordinate federal support for state and local governments. Cutter explains how FEMA’s autonomy and effectiveness have eroded since its absorption into the Department of Homeland Security after 2001, contributing to slow and fragmented responses during crises such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2025 Texas floods. She argues that dismantling or underfunding FEMA, as proposed by the current administration, would leave states underprepared and overburdened, especially as climate change drives more frequent and costly disasters. Cutter concludes that restoring FEMA as an independent, well-resourced agency would enable faster, more equitable, and more effective disaster response nationwide.
Read the full article: https://scdailygazette.com/2025/10/16/history-shows-why-fema-is-essential-in-disasters-and-how-losing-independency-hurt-its-capability/
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In The New Yorker article “A New Paradigm for Protecting Homes from Disastrous Fires” (Oct. 22, 2025), Dr. Alexandra Syphard, senior research scientist at the Conservation Biology Institute and Global Wildfire Collective Charter Member, offers a nuanced perspective on wildfire resilience. She affirms that the science clearly shows homes must be comprehensively hardened—every vulnerable feature matters—but cautions that the “do everything” message can unintentionally discourage homeowners who lack the means to retrofit fully. She emphasizes the importance of communicating wildfire preparedness in a way that empowers incremental action rather than fostering paralysis, bridging the gap between scientific rigor and the practical realities faced by communities in high-risk fire zones.
Take a read!
Alexandra Syphard: “Chile podría enfrentar un problema incluso mayor que California por los incendios forestales”
November 11, 2025
GWC Charter Member Dr. Alexandra Syphard, visited Chile’s Center for Climate and Resilience Science (CR2) to strengthen scientific collaboration on fire risk in Mediterranean ecosystems. She noted that Chile’s fire conditions closely resemble those of California and southern Europe, driven by drought, heat, and flammable vegetation. Syphard was struck by the scale of Chile’s eucalyptus plantations, warning that without improved management, they could pose even greater risks than California’s forests. Drawing on her research, she emphasized the dangers of dispersed urban growth in fire-prone landscapes and encouraged Chile to adopt fire-resistant building codes and more strategic land-use planning. She also highlighted that rising wildfire activity stems from intertwined climatic, land-use, and social factors, stressing the need for coordinated action between scientists, policymakers, and communities.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE by CR2
As of November 12th, 2025, GWC Charter Member, Dr. Mike Flannigan, is officially one of worlds nine most cited scientists!
Take a look at the full list
Congratulations to Global Wildfire Collective’s institutional partner, International Savannah Fire Management Initiative (@ftricone ), for their second place finish in Conservation X Lab’s Grand Fire Challenge! Watch their video describing IFSMI’s partnership with partners with Biomasa AC to explore Emissions Reduction Traditional Fire Management (ERTFM): a model for integrated fire management that supports healthier fire-adapted landscapes while creating financially sustainable pathways that can deliver added benefits for communities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR7ygO1qA2E&list=PLO53PF2xpbPFT3oFG_8OJnOJrI5MbJw0I&index=10
Lessons learned using species’ distribution models for conservation planning in the Golden Gate Biosphere reserve
New publication from GWC co-founder @asyphard