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Anatoly I. Sukhinin1, Douglas J. McRae2, Brian James Stocks2, Susan G. Conard3, Wei Min Hao3, Amber J. Soja4,5, Donald R. Cahoon5, Jin Ji-Zhong2
1) V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk, 660036, Russian Federation. [email protected]
2) Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, 1219 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A 2E5, Canada. [email protected]
3) US Forest Service, RMRS Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, MT 59808, USA. Wei Min Hao and Susan G. Conard, [email protected], [email protected]
4) National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, Virginia, USA 5) NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA. [email protected]
Impacts of climate change on the areas burned by wildfires and its implications on carbon emissions in the boreal zone are globally
significant. Wildfires in Russia burn from 4 to 18 million ha annually depending on burning conditions. Russia contains two-thirds of the
world's boreal forest and peat lands, yet quantification of these fires is hampered by the lack of accurate historical fire data. Official Russian
wildfire records greatly under estimate burned areas. However, satellite data have become available for assessing area burned since 1994
when the NASA first established satellite downlinks in Siberia. Changing weather conditions have greatly increased the burned area, fire
severity, and emissions in this region in the last 15-20 years. We will present evidence of frequent catastrophic fires during this time period.
Cluster character of spatial mass fires distribution
The method for estimating catastrophic wildfire situation is being
developed in our investigations. The catastrophic wildfire situation
includes grouping spatial distributions of large and extra large fires
produced by the spatial clusters integrated by the common zone of
aerodynamic interaction of convective columns and atmospheric
pressure formations. Such situation can be characterized by the
grouping of catastrophic fires over an area of more than 400,000
km2 under a long duration of anticyclone with the drought class
more than 5 (extreme) preventing the atmospheric front passage,
while the burn area portion exceeds 10%. Smoke cover decreases
the visibility to be less than 200 m, which prevents the aviation
forest protection services from operation.
Figure 1. Annual burn area for the 1996-2009 fire seasons.
http://www.ruf.uni-freiburg.de/fireglobe/current/globalfire.htm.
Figure 8. Fire scars on the Transbaikal area in 1987 and 2003.
Massive fires occurred practically on the same region mainly in
spring and summer seasons.
Figure 11. Catastrophic fires occur red over the Transbaikal region in 2007, when the fire weather danger index (PV-1, Nesterov
or BUI) were 4 times higher than the average fire season index in the same region.
Catastrophic fires in Russia are responsible for large burned areas and are the main reasons for major changes in Russian forest (Figs. 1 and
2). The 2002 wildfire situation in the Yakutia Region was an example of a catastrophic regional-scale ecological disaster (Figs. 3 and 4). As a
result of high-intensity surface fires, high tree (primarily Larix sp.) mortality (up to 40%) occurred in an area >50,000 km2 (Fig. 3). This area
between the Lena and Viliuy River did not have any precipitation during the entire 2002 fire season. Mass wildfires occupied a total area of
>700,000 km2. Cloud cover observed from a satellite image (Fig. 4) taken during the fire season was a classical example of the development
of stable high-pressure ridges associated with no-precipitation conditions.
Figure 7. Catastrophic fire polygon clusters for 1998 (brown), 2003 (blue)
and 2006 (red) .
2007
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
1 16 31 46 61 76 91 106 121 136 151 166 181 196
Номер дня
ПВ-1
2007
Fire Danger Index Season Dynamics in Central Siberia
(Boguchany, Krasnoyarsk region, 1996 and 2003 years,
red curve – FDI-2003, green curve – FDI-1996, blue –
precipitations, mm)
Динамика пожарной опасности
Богучаны, 2003 г.
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
12.5
.03
17.5
.03
22.5
.03
27.5
.03
1.6
.03
6.6
.03
11.6
.03
16.6
.03
21.6
.03
26.6
.03
1.7
.03
6.7
.03
11.7
.03
16.7
.03
21.7
.03
26.7
.03
31.7
.03
5.8
.03
10.8
.03
15.8
.03
20.8
.03
25.8
.03
30.8
.03
4.9
.03
9.9
.03
Дата
По
казател
ь П
О, ед
.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Осадки
, м
м
Осадки, мм
Показатель ПО, ед.
Показатель ПО 1996 г.
Figure 4. Cloud fronts cannot cross mass fire areas in the Yakutia Region
in 2002. Circulation in smoke column (right vortex-current) counters the
circulation of cloud mass.
Figure 3. Fire polygons showing the burned areas across Siberia and the
Russian Far East. Note a large area burned in Yakutia (red circle) over
1,000 km wide. The insert shows a satellite images (NOAA-16) taken a
year after the fires, showing the severity of the 2002 fires.
Figure 5. Vertical profiles of air temperature and dew point obtained using
ATOVS data showed that air over mass fires in2003 in the Baikal Lake territory
is very dry (humidity less than 20%). There was no precipitation from April to
July 2003. Daily humidity in Chita region was down to 10% in July .
Figure 6. Blocking anticyclone over mass fires in Khanty -Mansy oblast in
August 07, 2005.
Catastrophic Fires in Russian Forests
Anticyclone circulation
Сибирь, площадь
0,00
2000,00
4000,00
6000,00
8000,00
10000,00
12000,00
14000,00
16000,00
18000,00
20000,00
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Пл
ощ
ад
ь, ты
с. га
Площадь
4623.74*exp(0.083x)
R2=0.60
a) b)
c) d)
1200 km
Figure 9. Smoke aerosol depth propagated from Baikal Lake to Japan on 15
May, 2003, .
Сибирь, количество
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Ко
ли
честв
о
Количество
4626.19*exp(0.132x)
R2=0.87
Figure 2. Annual number of fires for the 1996-2009 fire seasons.
Conclusion
The Asian part of Russia is experiencing an increasing number of catastrophic fires. This fires affect
huge areas, and their increase is likely related in part to global climate change. The problems of
prevention and suppression of large and catastrophic fires in Russia are often more organizational in
terms of the fire management agency (e.g., financial), rather than technical knowledge. It will be
necessary to strengthen early fire detection and to increase suppression efforts to extinguish fires while
they are still small. Tactics for the use of burn-out operations should be considered. It is also important to
develop a national fire danger system for estimating fire danger based on the application of remote-
sensing weather. A procedure for estimating fire impact (i.e., economic, social and ecological) caused by
a wildfire is needed which would allow for better fire and forest management decisions.
Figure 10. (a) smoke plumes near the Viluy River taken from NOAA-7 on
30 July, 1984; (b) aerosol index distribution taken from Nimbus – 7
satellite; (c) satellite image taken from Russian satellite “Resours-O”
22.08.1985 showing the burned areas after catastrophic fires; and (d)
Canadian Fire Weather Index of the same date.