Fire Management Today Contains Articles About Issues Pertaining to Wildland Fre Management Around the World

today Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019

GLOBAL LANDSCAPE FIRE CHALLENGES: A DECADE OF PROGRESS

United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service In this Issue … Note: This issue of Fire Management Today contains articles about issues pertaining to wildland fre management around the world. The information presented here refects the authors’ own research and does not necessarily suggest endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Likewise, the fre management practices portrayed are in accordance with the policies of the countries in question and do not necessarily refect the policies of USDA.

Fire Management Today is published by the Forest Service, an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wash- ington, DC. The purpose of Fire Management Today is to share information related to wildland fre management for the beneft of the wildland fre community. No longer appearing in print, Fire Management Today is available on the World Wide Web at https://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fre/fre-management-today.

Victoria Christiansen, Chief Kaari Carpenter, General Manager Forest Service Hutch Brown, Editor Shawna A. Legarza, Psy.D., Director Fire and Aviation Management Jameson Karns and Lindon Pronto, Guest Editors

In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its agencies, offces, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity (including gender expression), sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, family/parental status, income derived from a public assistance program, political beliefs, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA (not all bases apply to all programs). Remedies and complaint fling deadlines vary by program or incident.

Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.) should contact the responsible agency or USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TTY) or contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English.

To fle a program discrimination complaint, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, AD–3027, found online at http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_fling_cust.html and at any USDA offce, or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter by mailing it to: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Offce of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC.

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

May 2019

Trade Names The use of trade, frm, or corporation names in this publication is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an offcial endorsement of any product or service by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Individual authors are responsible for the technical accuracy of the material presented in Fire Management Today. Fire Management today Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019

On the Cover: CONTENTS Anchor Point A Global Commitment to Wildland Fire Management Shawna A. Legarza, Psy.D...... 4

Salutations From the Global Fire Monitoring Center! Jameson Karns and Lindon N. Pronto ...... 5

An International Efort: The History of the Global Fire Monitoring Center Jameson Karns ...... 7

Southeast Asia—Fire and Politics in Land Use Change: Indonesia in Top left: Using prescribed fres Focus for wildfre hazard reduction in Bambang H. Saharjo and Lindon N. Pronto ...... 11 pine plantations in Ukraine. Top right: Early-season prescribed fre in the Cerrado, Brazil. Center: Wildfre Management in West Africa: A Community Efort Metal container of unexploded Lucy Amissah and Richard K. Ninnoni ...... 18 ordnance in eastern Europe, a hazard to frefghters. Bottom: Wildfres in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan Region and Community-Led Participants from nine countries at the Second Regional Symposium Fire Management in Nepal and Bhutan and Consultation on Regional Sundar Prasad Sharma and Kinley Tshering ...... 23 Cooperation in Cross-Boundary Fire Management in South America, Wildfres and Fire Management in the Eastern Mediterranean, hosted by Chile in Via del Mar on October 3–4, 2017. Southeastern Europe, and Middle East Regions Gavriil Xanthopoulos and Nikola Nikolov...... 29

The USDA Forest Service’s Fire and Fire Management Challenges in South America: Cooperation and Aviation Management Staff has adopted a logo refecting three central principles of Integration wildland fre management: Lara Steil, Patricio Sanhueza, and Marcos Giongo ...... 39 • Innovation: We will respect and value thinking minds, voices, and thoughts Challenges in Managing Landscape Fires in Eastern Europe of those that challenge the status quo while focusing on the greater good. Sergiy Zibtsev and Johann Georg Goldammer ...... 48 • Execution: We will do what we say we will do. Achieving program objectives, Remote Sensing for Wildfre Monitoring in Siberian Forests improving diversity, and accomplishing Evgenii Ponomarev, Oyunsanaa Byambasuren, targets are essential to our credibility. and Andrey Eritsov ...... 62 • Discipline: What we do, we will do well. Fiscal, managerial, and operational discipline are at the core of our ability to Facing the Flames—Looking Forward as a Global Community fulfll our mission. Lindon Pronto and Jameson Karns ...... 69

Guidelines for Contributors

Firefghter and public safety is our frst priority.

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 3 Anchor By Shawna A. Legarza, Psy.D. Director, Fire and Aviation Management Point USDA Forest Service

A GLOBAL COMMITMENT TO WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT

s you know, our primary job— We also have the invaluable opportunity and the expectation of the to see how different the cultural, A American people—is that we do ... no matter where we socioeconomic, and environmental our best to safely manage and protect are from, the issues and issues, policies, and management natural resources in the United States. solutions are in other countries. One of But the Forest Service found out long challenges we face in our core qualities as an agency—how ago, through the Great Fires of 1910, managing wildland fre are we work—is through curiosity, and by that we could never succeed alone. sharing these differences collectively, we The Weeks Act of 1911 gave us the not ours alone. just might come up with new ways of cooperative framework we have today looking at our own issues, policies, and for wildland fre management through management solutions. Precisely this has partnerships with other Federal, State, share it with our fellow fre managers. always enabled us to become smarter in Tribal, and private entities. We have also discovered that our own our work and to do it more safely. fre management issues and challenges Over the decades, we have extended that are not ours alone but cross oceans and Beginning with Gifford Pinchot’s same spirit of cooperative wildland fre continental boundaries. The international legendary trips to Europe and the South management to include our international fre program affords the Forest Service Pacifc, the Forest Service has always partners. The Forest Service, together with a unique opportunity to compare been curious about forests worldwide, with the U.S. Department of the Interior, our own frefghting problems with the global challenges of sustainable has longstanding bilateral agreements similar issues that other countries face. forest management, and how other with Australia, Canada, Mexico, and countries cope. We have long been eager New Zealand to give mutual frefghting So does this issue of Fire Management to learn from and support the global fre expertise and support in time of need. Today. In it, you will fnd articles about community, for example when former These international partners have a broad range of fre-related challenges Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth graciously responded with overhead and from around the world, in various endorsed the goals and work of the Global crews when we have requested assistance. regions on four different continents— Wildland Fire Network at the Hemispheric When they have requested assistance Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Conference on Forest Fires in San Jose, from us, we have responded to their call. No matter what continent you are from, Costa Rica, on October 23, 2004. some of the challenges you can read However, fre suppression assistance about will strike a chord, allowing you Although language, customs, and is only part of how we work with to see your own fre-related issues from culture can separate us, wildfres are international partners. The Forest Service a fresh perspective and perhaps learn the same, no matter whether we call has offered international fre support something new. them forest fres, bush fres, or fres in for decades. In partnership with Forest the wildlands. A strong wildland fre Service International Programs or In short, no matter where we are from, program is important, but alone it will through memoranda of understanding, the issues and challenges we face in never be enough. We are grateful for fre managers at all levels have traveled managing wildland fre are not ours the international fre assistance and around the world to educate and mentor alone. Through our international support we received in the past, and international fre managers. We have fre programs—and through we are deeply indebted to the countries shared our toolbox with others to help various international articles in Fire who stand ready, willing, and able to them accomplish prefre mitigation work, Management Today over the years (see, offer it again when we ask. We pledge to continue working with our international better manage wildland fres, and respond for example, volumes 68(3) and 68(4) at counterparts, not only in the role of to all-hazard emergencies. https://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fre/ reciprocal assistance but also with fre-management-today/archives/), the the goal of better managing our own We have benefted from these trips as Forest Service has had the opportunity wildlands while promoting well-accepted well. On each trip, we see a different to take a look at how our international international fre management principles. perspective and learn to appreciate other, counterparts deal with the same types of Together, we can help each other succeed, sometimes better ways of doing things. issues we face here at home. We bring that knowledge home and whether we are giving or receiving. ■ Fire Management Today 4 SALUTATIONS FROM THE GLOBAL FIRE MONITORING CENTER! Jameson Karns and Lindon N. Pronto

e can hardly believe it has been 10 years since This issue provides the North American fre W our last collaborative effort with Fire Management management community with a sample of some of Today (see “International Fire the Global Fire Monitoring Center’s eforts. Management,” parts 1 and 2, volumes 68(3) and 68(4), at https://www.fs.fed.us/managing- land/fre/fre-management- the close of 2018, 2 decades after • Similarly, the rapporteurs from today?page=3). This special issue the establishment of the GFMC, six the Hindu Kush–Himalayan of Fire Management Today is a regional fre monitoring centers and region of South Asia point out continuation of this tradition set regional fre management resource that future success in sustainable forth a decade ago. It is a snapshot centers will be operational and fre management will depend of the Global Fire Monitoring autonomous within their respective on more empowerment for local Center (GFMC) and its many regions. communities. efforts and accomplishments on • Conversely, the dwindling presence behalf of the Global Wildland Fire This specially curated issue of Fire of local rural communities in the Network (GWFN), as well as future Management Today provides the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast challenges. North American fre management Europe, and Middle East regions community with a brief yet are contributing to increasing For more than 15 years, the informed sample of some of the wildfre problems. The buildup GFMC, which is based in Freiburg, GFMC’s efforts. The frst article of fuel loads, a consequence of Germany, has served as the GWFN orients readers to the background the rural exodus and associated Secretariat and has supported and mission of the GFMC. This is land abandonment, is creating the development of national followed by contributions from seven unprecedented wildfre threats. policies, capacity building, and regions: • South America is faced with cross-boundary cooperation in fre facet-rich developments that are management around the globe. • The contribution from Southeast infuencing fre regimes, including As fre management continues to Asia highlights various challenges, the consequences of climate advance internationally, the GFMC notably the need for reducing the change. The regional follow- and regional wildland fre networks collateral damages of excessive fre up to the wildfre emergency have begun to decentralize efforts application in land use and land in Chile in 2017 highlights the by establishing regional centers of use change—the damaging effects willingness of South American excellence in fre management. By on ecosystems, regional and the countries to collectively improve global climate, and human health governance, interoperability, and and security. effectiveness of transboundary • The report from West Africa shows cooperation in fre management. Jameson Karns is a graduate student in the Department of History at the that effective fre management The contribution from Brazil University of California in Berkeley, relies on participatory approaches also highlights the progress of Berkeley, CA, and an associate partner and for local communities to take approaches in applying principles at the Global Fire Monitoring Center; initiative in balancing traditional of integrated fre management. and Lindon Pronto is an offcer of the practices with frequent fre • Countries of Eastern Europe are Global Fire Monitoring Center, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Freiburg, occurring in a drying climate. dealing with various challenges, Germany. such as the management of Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 5 fres burning on radioactively We hope to highlight solidarity in the international contaminated terrain with the potential for cross-border fre community. transport of hazardous smoke; and, on the other hand, intensive crop burning on agricultural lands is resulting in severe episodes of The fre season of 2017 in the show that the global community air pollution. United States and Canada was, in stands together in facing the • In Central-Eastern Eurasia, some respects, unprecedented in challenges of rapidly changing fre wildfres burning in vast and recent history. As guest editors regimes and increased vulnerability remote territories require for this issue of Fire Management of ecosystems and society to fre. We management decisions regarding Today, the frst in 2019, we hope hope this issue proves interesting, fre precursors and consequences, to highlight solidarity in the informative, and inspirational for ■ supported through satellite international fre community—to our readers. monitoring from space.

CONTRIBUTORS WANTED! We need your fre-related articles and photographs for Fire Management Today! Subjects of published material include:

• Aviation • Fire History • Planning (including Budgeting) • Communication • Fire Use (including Prescribed • Preparedness • Cooperation/Partnerships Fire) • Prevention • Ecological Restoration • Fuels Management • Safety • Education • Firefghting Experiences • Suppression • Equipment and Technology • Incident Management • Training • Fire Behavior • Information Management • Weather • Fire Ecology (including Systems) • Wildland–Urban Interface • Fire Effects • Personnel Contact the editor via email at [email protected].

Fire Management Today 6 AN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT: THE HISTORY OF THE GLOBAL FIRE MONITORING CENTER

Jameson Karns

y first visit to the Global The Global Fire Monitoring Center is the only Fire Monitoring Center institution that monitors, assesses, and assists in M (GFMC) was disorienting. As I walked through the entryway, the management of fres on a global scale. I was hit with the familiar aroma of burnt vegetation. Nearby, well-used wildland turnouts hung Forest, a forested mountain range in above boxes of fusees. Radios southwestern Germany. capable of receiving fre dispatches anywhere in the world adorned The Freiburg offce is the heart the desk closest to me. As a former of a global array of networks and frefghter, I consider these objects institutions addressing the interface to be familiar tools of the trade. between vegetation fre science and the community of policymakers Upon further exploring the and practitioners, often referred to Figure 1—The Fireglobe, emblem of building, I stumbled through as the science-policy-practitioners mountains of fre ecology research the Global Fire Monitoring Center. Five leaves are set against the backdrop of a interface. The GFMC operates reports pertaining to nearly every global fame. The fve leaves represent the through 14 regional wildland fre corner of the globe. Studies with continents with wildland fre as a natural networks covering all continents; phenomenon. endorsements from the United collectively, they make up the Nations, the Council of Europe, Global Wildland Fire Network. and the Organization for Security Global Reach and Cooperation in Europe were We are all familiar with fre Each regional network has common the norm. Like me, the staff was management agencies at the climatic, ecological, and cultural made up of former members of the municipal, State, and Federal levels. features. This allows for the fre management community who Yet is there an organization that sharing of local expertise to jointly felt as comfortable with a driptorch assesses wildfre at an international address regional fre abatement as they did penning policies and level? When I speak with my and ecology concerns. The regional research documents. It became colleagues in the American fre networks have various origins and clear that the GFMC is neither management community, they are histories. They include Subsaharan a fre station nor a fre ecology often unaware and stunned that such Africa, South Asia, South East laboratory but rather an informed an agency exists. Asia, Australasia, Northeast Asia, medium between the two. Central Asia, South America, The GFMC is the only institution North America, Mesoamerica, that monitors, assesses, and the Caribbean, Eurasia, the assists in the management of fres Mediterranean, Southeast Europe/ affecting natural, cultural, and Caucasus, and the rather small Jameson Karns is a graduate student urban–industrial landscapes on a Euro-Alpine subregion. in the Department of History at the global scale. The nongovernmental University of California in Berkeley, organization belongs to the Max The Global Wildland Fire Network Berkeley, CA, and an associate partner Planck Society for the Advancement is united under a common at the Global Fire Monitoring Center, mandate—to provide policy advice Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, of Science. It is headquartered in Freiburg, Germany. Freiburg, within the famed Black and facilitate science and technology

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 7 transfer, thereby enabling nations The Global Fire Monitoring Center helps countries to reduce “the negative impacts of vegetation fres (wildland fres) on develop national fre management policies and the environment and humanity” build their capacity for landscape-scale fre and to advance “the knowledge and application of the ecologically management. and environmentally benign role of natural fre in fre-dependent ecosystems, and sustainable Federal Conservation Law. The law vegetation that burns as a naturally application of fre in land-use forbade the use of fre, including occurring phenomenon. systems” (Goldammer 2013). prescribed burns, throughout Germany, with a few exceptions. As the GFMC began to grow, History It was followed by regulations it acquired more and more forbidding the burning of vegetation. professional affliations. In 1998, the Despite its broad ambitions, the Deterred but still determined, United Nations (UN) Educational, GFMC comes from a humble Goldammer began researching fre Scientifc, and Cultural Organization beginning. Its heritage, much like its ecology on the global arena. He formally endorsed the overall goal operations, is a product of addressing formed the Fire Ecology Research of the work of the GFMC, leading international issues by seeking Group at the Max Planck Institute to numerous memoranda of global solutions in fre management. of Chemistry (Arbeitsgruppe understanding, letters of intent, and Feuerkologie, Max-Planck-Institut formal agreements with specialized The founder of GFMC is Dr. Johann fr Chemie). UN agencies, such as the UN Georg Goldammer, a former naval Environment Programme/Offce for offcer and Hessian forester with In the 1990s, however, while Humanitarian Affairs Joint Unit, the a profound interest in fre ecology working on extended fre and smoke World Health Organization, and the (Pyne 2015). Goldammer was one pollution episodes in Southeast Food and Agriculture Organization of a handful of foreign participants Asia, the research group hit a (FAO). In 2001, the GFMC became in the Tall Timbers Fire Ecology roadblock. The group recognized a member of the Interagency Task community during the 1970s and that the scientifc community Force for Disaster Reduction of 1980s (Goldammer 2000). Through had accumulated a surplus of fre the UN International Strategy on Tall Timbers, he participated in ecology research but that applied Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and a number of prescribed burns policy was lacking. The group established the Working Group throughout the American South. reoriented their efforts to become of Wildland Fires. This group His American colleagues’ willingness the conduit between fre ecology builds coordinated international and ability to apply fre ecology research and policy implementation. approaches to wildfre disaster risk scholarship to land management had (Goldammer 1990). reduction. The UNISDR continues a profound impact on him and on to support the operations of the building transatlantic cooperation in Within the group, Goldammer became GFMC and the Global Wildland fre management. the leading advocate for developing Fire Network and its Wildland Fire and carrying out policies related to Advisory Group, an advisory body to With a renewed interest in fre fre ecology. His goal to establish such the UN. In 2005, the GFMC became ecology, Goldammer returned to his an organization was supported by the affliated with the UN University, the homeland of Germany. Creating a Max Planck Institut of Chemistry, and think tank of the UN (fg. 2). German vanguard for fre ecology, in 1998 the Global Fire Monitoring his master’s thesis introduced the Center was established. After leading the UN Economic word for fre ecology, Feuerkologie, Commission for Europe/FAO Team to the German lexicon (Goldammer Under Goldammer’s leadership and of Specialists on Forest Fire, the 1975). Goldammer’s hope was to with a new direction, the GFMC GFMC is now serving the Council of conduct similar feld experiments to selected the “Fireglobe” as its emblem Europe’s Major Hazards Agreement those he witnessed in America. (fg. 1). The Fireglobe is a globe with a and the Organization for Security fve-leafed branch in the foreground, and Cooperation in Europe. In 1976, however, the German contrasted against a fame. Each The GFMC is helping countries Federal legislature passed a revised leaf represents a continent with develop national fre management Fire Management Today 8 In the diaries and archives of the GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center, n.d.), I have noticed many institutional highlights, such as meetings with former UN Secretary Generals Kof Anan and Ban Ki- moon; speeches at International Association of Wildland Fire conferences; and the records of Dr. Johann Goldammer, including his correspondence with ministers and heads of states and his frst testimony before a commission of the German Federal legislature, held in 1990. To me, these milestones confrm that the initiatives and functions of the GFMC are all based on vast pragmatic and political experience woven into international fre management Figure 2—Signing ceremony of the cooperative agreement between UN University (UNU) and (Goldammer 2013). the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry/Global Fire Monitoring Center. From left: Meinrat O. Andreae (Director, Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry) and Hans J.A. Van Ginkel (Rector, UNU) (sitting); Johann G. Goldammer (Director, GFMC) and Operations Janos Bogardi (Director, UNU EHS). Photo: Global Fire Monitoring Center. Attempting to address wildfre across the world is an enormous feat. The GFMC has three primary From 2010 to 2017, the Global Fire Monitoring functions: data aggregation, research, and feld operations. Center established six regional centers serving the science-policy-practitioners interface. The GFMC collects all data related to wildfres. Each day, fre ecology experts comb through thousands of articles pertaining to wildfres in a policies and build their capacity for science-policy-practitioners multitude of languages. Their task landscape-scale fre management. interface, including centers for: is continual and relentless because the global fre season is 365 days a In 2009, the GFMC began to • Southeast Europe and the year. The GFMC researchers mine restructure itself. The goal was to Caucasus (in the former Yugoslav the articles for data pertaining to develop a decentralized horizontal Republic of Macedonia, 2010), burnt acreage, injuries, fatalities, institutional structure. The intent • Eastern Europe (in Ukraine, 2013), secondary damage, and much more. was to build on the growing • Central Eurasia (in the Russian This aggregated data is collected by scientifc and technical potential Federation, 2017), an international array of fre ecology around the world, capitalizing • Central Asia (in Mongolia, 2015), experts and made readily available to on regional knowledge of fre • Southeast Asia (in Indonesia, the public through daily updates. ecology and cultural fre history 2017), and and on localized and innovative • South America (in Brazil and The GFMC is also a major fre management techniques. The Chile, 2017, to become operational institution for research in fre strategy was to pursue a multivaried in 2018). ecology and fre management. The approach to fre ecology, with center’s archive has collections no single technique or approach All centers are operating dating back to the early 19th dominating, as had often happened autonomously yet collaboratively in century (fg. 3), and the GFMC in development aid projects. From ongoing research, education, and frequently hosts academics from 2010 to 2017, the GFMC established feld operations. around the world, inviting them six regional centers serving the to explore its collections. Alumni Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 9 of the GFMC include the historian well as in custodial techniques such as on Transboundary Cooperation Stephen J. Pyne, the current prescribed burning. in Fire Management in South leaders of the fre management America, with the attendance of nine resource centers, and myself. The The GFMC also plays a role in aiding countries. Its goal was to review the GFMC’s research culminates in nations in fre management, best horrifc event and to provide avenues regular regional conferences and exemplifed following the 2017 fre for preventing such confagrations is featured in the quadrennial season in Chile. On January 27–28, in the future. The Chilean hosts International Association of the worst wildfre in Chile’s modern presented the GFMC with a symbol Wildland Fire conferences. history killed 11 people, including 5 of appreciation—a shovel belonging frefghters; displaced thousands of to one of the fallen frefghters. The third GFMC function is to aid people; and completely destroyed the in feld operations and experiments city of Santa Olga. Fire suppression Global Voice involving fre management. The center was truly an international endeavor, Founded in 1998, the GFMC maintains equipment caches and with over 20 countries participating. has become a leading voice for assists governments and organizations Following the crisis, the GFMC international fre management. in the management of active fre as organized a Regional Consultation No other institution works within the same global framework of fre monitoring and management or has a similar global capacity. The GFMC’s ability to combine nationwide fre management policies, coupled with its skill and capacity to support bottom-up approaches in fre science and fre management, has allowed the center to grow and to facilitate real progress in global fre management.

Literature Cited Global Fire Monitoring Center. [N.d.]. Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC). http://www.gfmc.online/. [Date accessed unknown]. Goldammer, J.G. 1975. Feuerkologie und Feuer-Management. Freiburg, Germany: Albrecht Ludwig University. M.S. thesis. Goldammer, J.G., ed. 1990. Fire in the tropical biota: ecosystem processes and global challenges. Ecol. Studies 84. Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag. 497 p. Goldammer, J.G. 2000. Global transitions of fre and fre management: retrospectives and perspectives. In: Moser, W.K.; Moser, C.F., eds. Fire and forest ecology: innovative silviculture and vegetation management. 21st proceedings, annual Tall Timbers fre ecology conference. Tallahassee, FL: Tall Timbers Research Station: 1–9. Goldammer, J.G., ed. 2013. Vegetation fres and global change: challenges for concerted international action. A White Paper directed to the United Nations and International Organizations. Remagen-Oberwinter, Germany: Kessel Publishing House. 398 p. Pyne, S.J. 2015. East of the wind and west of the rain. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 22(1): 155–163. A sample from the GFMC historical archives. In the 1800s, farmers in southern Germany used idiosyncratic techniques to roll burning materials down slopes. ■ Fire Management Today 10 SOUTHEAST ASIA—FIRE AND POLITICS IN LAND USE CHANGE: INDONESIA IN FOCUS

Bambang H. Saharjo and Lindon N. Pronto

A large area of forest in Indonesia’s Riau Province has been cleared and burned, opening up space for a palm oil plantation. Photo: Bambang Saharjo (2016).

or millennia, fre has been cleared, drained and burned, and largely unnoticed by the global used in Southeast Asia as replaced by agroindustrial systems. community. By 1994, Indonesia was F a tool in farming and land Periodic occurrences of the El increasingly affected by excessive clearing. By the 20th century, Nio–Southern Oscillation weather fre application in land use and population growth, migration, pattern produced severe droughts land use change; an estimated 13.3 and economic development had in Southeast Asia, during which million acres (5.4 million ha) burned resulted in rampant conversion traditional land use fres often that year (Saharjo 2016). Despite of native forests and peatlands for burned out of control. While these mounting scientifc evidence of agricultural purposes. Biodiversity- challenges are present across the negative environmental consequences and carbon-rich pristine forest region, Indonesia—by no small of large-scale fre application, in the and peat swamp ecosystems were margin—has seen the worst. 1997–98 season—once again coupled with El Nio drought—fres damaged Impacts of Fire an estimated area of 24.7–27.2 million Bambang Saharjo is head of the newly on Indonesia acres (10–11 million ha) (Goldammer established Regional Southeast Asia 2007). Similar conditions reoccurred Fire Management Resource Center and In 1982–83, El Nio-induced coordinator of the UNISDR–Regional in 2006, when another 19.8 million Southeast Asia Wildland Fire Network as drought contributed to 12.4 million acres (8 million ha) burned, and they well as a professor of forest protection acres (5 million ha) of land in contributed again to the detrimental at the Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Indonesia being burned, including fres of 2015–16 (Saharjo 2016). Agricultural University, West Java, 8.6 million acres (3.5 million ha) Indonesia; and Lindon Pronto is an in East Kalimantan Province alone officer of the Global Fire Monitoring The 1997–98 episode garnered Center, Max Planck Institute, Freiburg, (Goldammer and Seibert 1990). The international attention. Assistance Germany. magnitude of these fres remained centered on constructing fre Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 11 management capacity through emissions releases, signaling a Smoke and haze from land use dozens of projects, investments, and need for more indepth research fres have signifcantly impacted advisory support for environmental to accurately calculate peat fre the livelihoods and health of and land use policies. Despite emission factors because these the population of Indonesia and hundreds of millions of dollars in may differ from lab experiments neighboring countries. At times, foreign investments, the effectiveness (Stockwell and others 2016). smoke has blanketed 70 to 80 of these efforts remained low due percent of the region, including to the complexity of the issue and a As with fre events anywhere in the Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, misguided emphasis on suppression- world, quantifying fscal damage and Thailand, and The Philippines. oriented interventions (such as economic impact means roughly Regional and cross-border smoke deployment of frefghting aircraft); estimating at best. The National pollution has also contributed to even with political engagement and Disaster Management Authority political tensions between Southeast a legally binding transboundary (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Asian nations, especially between agreement and response mechanism, Bencana) of Indonesia put the Singapore and Indonesia. Some even the root causes were never damages to the national economy termed the 2015 event as “a crime suffciently addressed, and many against humanity.” symptoms persisted. For local peoples, the continual While the situation on the ground By 1994, Indonesia was degradation of forest and peatland showed little improvement, the crisis areas as well as the loss of of the late 1990s did refocus efforts increasingly afected by biodiversity and other valuable by the scientifc community: higher excessive fre application resources contribute to social capabilities in aerial observations and conficts that further diminish atmospheric measurements were in land use and land use livelihoods. In addition to impacting pursued, coupled with more detailed change. critical social and physical research on the ground. Studies infrastructure (such as closing attempted to quantify fre damages— schools and interrupting shipping including one study showing that and aviation), smoke pollution has emissions releases by the 1997–98 in 2015 at about $16.5 billion, had a severe toll on human health. fres constituted nearly one-third equivalent to 1.9 percent of the Recent studies emphasized these of the annual global anthropogenic country’s gross domestic product impacts, with one study estimating emissions and up to 40 percent of (Wardhana 2016). Additionally, over 180,000 premature annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels for the World Bank estimated that deaths from smoke pollution caused 1997 (Page and others 2002). Indonesia’s fres cost upwards of by vegetation fres worldwide $295 million in biodiversity-related (Lelieveld and others 2015). The El Nio of 2015 resulted in losses in 2015. Not included in Indonesia alone had 583,925 cases fre spread affecting more than these estimates are potentially of acute respiratory tract illness 6.4 million acres (2.6 million ha) billions of dollars previously between July and November 2015. (Wardhana 2016). Fires burning invested towards Indonesian fre in September and October 2015 management since the mid-1980s. The same year also saw 26 fre- released about 11.3 teragrams of After 1998, heavy investments into related fatalities (Kamaruzzaman carbon dioxide per day (1 teragram community-based fre management 2016). A recent health impact = 1 million metric tons) (Huijnen and fre suppression capacity in modeling study estimated that and others 2016)—or, by another general were triggered by a study the 2015–16 smoke crisis cost up estimate, roughly 15 teragrams positing that the most cost-effective to 100,300 Southeast Asian lives of carbon dioxide per day (van der method for industrialized nations to by way of premature mortality Werf 2015). Both fgures were much battle climate change was through (Koplitz and others 2016). Another greater than the daily release of 8.9 the protection of at-risk forests study estimated that 69 million teragrams of carbon dioxide from in developing countries. Norway, people were persistently exposed to fossil fuel burning in the entire for example, has offered $1 billion unhealthy smoke pollution levels in European Union. More recent to Indonesia to halt deforestation fall 2015, resulting in up to 17,000 research from feld measurements, (Spolar 2016).1 deaths (Crippa and others 2016). however, found signifcantly lower Fire Management Today 12 Oil Palm Plantations The continual degradation of forest and peatland and Logging areas as well as the loss of biodiversity and other Large plantation companies have valuable resources contribute to social conficts. been responsible for widespread illegal fre application, but they are also important drivers of economic growth for Indonesia. The exports of to minimize the extent of fre- and the regional problem of fre and palm oil alone generate $20 billion a smoke-related disasters. smoke. Among these were the year and employ millions of citizens Palm oil and pulp-and-paper Integrated Fire Management Project (Hermansyah 2016). companies are heavily intertwined in East Kalimantan (1994–2003), with other stakeholder groups, supported by German funds; and the However, after the 2015 fre making their roles in the fre and Forest Fire Management Project in outbreak and resulting economic haze crises diffcult to follow. They South Sumatra (1999–2008), funded losses, the Government initiated are known to exert infuence over by the European Union through the dozens of investigations against national and local governments, and German International Development palm oil and pulp-and-paper they allegedly hire local citizens to Corporation Agency (Deutsche outfts. The Government is illegally use fre to prepare land for Gesellschaft fr Internationale under increasing pressure from commercial uses. Zusammenarbeit). These two major neighboring countries—Malaysia, projects “tested the waters” for Singapore, and Thailand—due to International Eforts similar efforts while developing methodological approaches of the haze, and the issue has drawn Throughout the 1990s and integrated fre management under global attention. New technologies, early 2000s, probably 30-plus the relatively unknown conditions such as satellite imagery and drone mainly short-term national and present in Indonesia. The projects footage, have also limited the internationally supported projects produced valuable insight into the effectiveness of narratives designed were implemented aimed at tackling underlying causes of fre application and uncontrolled wildfres, including the problems of poverty and questions of land use rights and land tenure/use conficts.

Such international efforts, however, came during a period of rapidly increasing international market demands, especially for palm oil as well as pulp and paper. Widespread provision and conversion of land to meet such demands could not be reconciled with a growing population, social problems connected to agroindustrialization, and the persistent problems of land tenure and land use rights. Additionally, international development projects coincided with the democratization of Indonesia (reformasi) after the end of the Suharto era and the subsequent Fire set by local citizens to a logging deck owned by a large plantation in Indonesia’s decentralization of the country’s Riau Province. While large palm oil and pulp-and-paper companies are blamed for many administrative functions as of 1999, of the fres burning in the region, there are two sides to the story: fre is also used as further complicating international a weapon by local communities with no other way of contesting concessions to large assistance and involvement. companies. Photo: Brad Sanders (2005). Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 13 The Politics of Haze Smoke (haze) pollution in Southeast Asia has Smoke (haze) pollution in Southeast become increasingly political. Asia has become increasingly political. Efforts to address the social, economic, environmental, and other implications of the El hosted on a country-rotation in fre management at all levels. Nio-fueled fre outbreaks have basis; unfortunately, cross-border International fre scientists, spiked following each incident. political tensions over haze issues managers, and policymakers at the Transboundary mechanisms and have sometimes lowered the 6th International Wildland Fire national policies have had years of effectiveness of the meetings, Conference in Pyeongchang, Korea, development: the Association of leading a country’s representatives in October 2015 also called on COP Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to walk out on at least one occasion. 21 for action. Agreement on Transboundary Haze The fckle nature of international Pollution, signed in 2002, is the cooperation supports the argument A New Approach for developing national capacities, only legally binding multilateral Following the 2015 fres, the especially through local efforts. agreement pertaining to fre environmental conditions changed International recognition of management issues anywhere in the drastically as a wet La Nia weather the problem prior to and at the world and is the most advanced and pattern produced more rain in 2016 Conference of the Parties (COP 21) utilized approach of its kind. than in 2015, signifcantly reducing convened in Paris in December Since ratifcation of the ASEAN the number of fre outbreaks. 2015 under the United Nations agreement by all member states in Figure 1 shows an example from Framework Convention on Climate 2014, all 10 countries are obligated Riau Province in Indonesia of Change spurred Indonesia to enforce to implement it. Ministerial-level rainfall versus detected wildfres existing laws regulating the use meetings have been conducted (“hotspots”). While governments regularly and are convened and of fre and to enhance governance

Figure 1—The number of wildfres (orange line tracking “hotspots”) and levels of rainfall (blue bars tracking rainfall in centimeters) from January 2015 to December 2016, showing an inverse correlation between rainfall levels and number of wildfres. High rainfall levels from November 2015 to December 2016 were associated with low numbers of wildfres (except in August 2016, when a decrease in rainfall resulted in a signifcant increase in fre incidents). Source: Velicia (2017).

Fire Management Today 14 in the region were quick to tout industry was ordered, especially in prompting President Widodo to the successes of efforts to combat deep peat areas, further limiting request detailed action plans for regional fre outbreaks and haze, it economic activities in these sectors. land and forest fre mitigation and was clear to many that the reduction The moratorium, an effort to prevent to urge emergency preparedness of these incidents was not a result of peatlands from being drained, is a as early as possible leading into suddenly effective policy and local law direct strategy for protecting these dry seasons. Judging from hasty enforcement changes but simply a biologically rich carbon reservoirs. emergency response declarations by result of a wet year. local authorities during the much more moderate dry season of 2017, Nevertheless, to anticipate future it appears that the President’s orders severe fres and save and restore Indonesia’s moratorium have at least in part been observed. burned and degraded peatlands, in on peatland The President also emphasized a 2016 the Indonesian Government need to strengthen early detection launched the Peat Restoration Agency development has been systems in fre-prone regions such (Baden Restorasi Gambut), led by praised by the United as Riau, West Kalimantan, East Mr. Nazir Foead and supported by Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, many peatland experts. The agency Nations Environment and Papua Provinces. At the aims to restore 4.9 million acres (2 Programme. President’s urging, agencies such million ha) by 2020. These restoration as the Indonesian National Police activities are being legislatively and Defense Forces, anticorruption backed by the regulatory framework agencies, and the Ministry of of Government Law No. 71 from Unfortunately, the implementation Environment and Forestry have 2014, which stipulates that ground of such regulations at the feld also begun handing out rewards water levels must remain within level has not been as satisfactory as for fre prevention successes—and 4.9 inches (40 cm) from the peat’s hoped, and it is apparent that several punishments for regions failing to surface. This regulation is based on large companies continue to run prevent illegal fres. scientifc observations determining operations in nonpermitted areas. that 4.9 inches (40 cm) is a critical President Widodo ordered the law water table threshold: if drained Indonesia is the world’s most enforcement apparatus to be more further, the peatland may dry out and populous Muslim country. The assertive in solving forest and land become susceptible to fre. In 2016, Quran forbids humans from fre cases, and he reminded all Government Law No. 57 added further harming the environment, yet private companies to follow the rules. provisions to Law No. 71, giving forest and peatland burning damage Although such (politicized) rhetoric the Government more executive not only the environment but is rarely enforceable, the Indonesian enforcement power; in 2017, the also people’s health. In 2016, the authorities have made it a very high Ministry of Environment and Forestry country’s leading Islamic clerical priority to address fre management launched a guide to better facilitate body issued a fatwa (religious decree) challenges. Between 2015 and 2017, the application of the 4.9-inch (40-cm) against the willful starting of fres many companies had cultivation rule in the feld at local level. in a bid to prevent a return of the permits revoked or suspended or were choking haze. Though a very rare otherwise warned. In January 2016, Indonesian intervention by a religious body to President Joko Widodo made explicit address an environmental issue— In a major departure from previous calls for more preventive measures, and specifcally a fre issue—the dealings, signifcant improvements tougher law enforcement, more move was welcomed by the country’s in legal precedent as well as proper community involvement, and better Ministry of Environment and legal training and political will have governance of private land and Forestry, which encouraged Islamic resulted in dozens of prosecutions company concessions. Furthermore, preachers to spread news of the fatwa in the past 3 years. Convictions the Indonesian Government halted at a local level. have led to hundreds of millions of the granting of new land concessions dollars in fnes, with many more for palm oil plantations on peatland. The Indonesian Meteorology, verdicts on the way (see, for example, A 5-year peatland moratorium on the Climatology, and Geophysics Agency Munthe 2016). In November 2016, issuance of new permits for palm oil predicted that the climate in 2018 a landmark Supreme Court ruling concessions and for pulp-and-paper and beyond will become drier again, handed one pulp-and-paper company Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 15 Launch of the Regional Fire Management Resource Center South East Asia (RFMRC–SEA) by the Ministry for Environment and Forestry, the Ambassador of Germany, and the Global Fire Monitoring Center. As a bridge among the scientifc, practitioner, and policy communities, the RFMRC–SEA will act as an information repository and resource for best practices and international best practices in integrated fre management. Photo: RFMRC–SEA. a fne of $1.19 billion for illegal land must fear for their personal safety Programme as a historic clearing, the largest such ruling in and careers. Compounding matters, contribution to global efforts to the nation’s history (Jong 2016). only a handful of experts are tackle climate change. As the government continues this equipped to make such testimony, strong-arm approach while boosting which requires extensive (voluntary) Aside from ancient coal seam fres investments in feld patrols, law feld investigations in the burned in Borneo (Goldammer and Seibert enforcement and community areas in question and knowledge of 1990), Indonesia historically has involvement will be critical to regulatory frameworks. A current not been a fre-prone landscape. continue to pressure corporations initiative to address this defcit by Institutionalizing a line of to better comply with the law—and training more legal professionals in communication for science, policy to counteract years of corruption in fre investigation and environmental advice, and international standards this economic sector. law has already noticeably increased of best practices in integrated fre Unfortunately, however, not a the Indonesian Government’s management is needed, as well as a single rupiah has been paid out ability to counter the power of the repository to store and utilize this as yet. The court cases remain fnancially and legally well-lubricated knowledge. The recently established trapped in the legal system, with apparatus of corporate defenders. Regional Fire Management Resource a waiting period of several years Center serving Southeast Asia for hearings. Another challenge is Outlook (RFMRC–SEA), hosted by the fnding expert witnesses (that is, University of Bogor, is taking on Countries in ASEAN aim to fre investigators) to testify against this task. The RFMRC–SEA is a achieve a smoke-free zone by 2020. powerful corporations. Expert sister center to three other effective Indonesia has taken such measures witnesses generally hold academic/ RFMRCs as an integral part of as adopting a long-term action scientifc positions, but if their the United Nations International plan to address land and forest credibility is attacked by corporate Strategy for Disaster Reduction’s fres. Indonesia’s moratorium on defendants, testifying in court can Global Wildland Fire Network (ISDR, peatland development was praised have serious repercussions—they n.d.). The other three RFMRCs (also by the United Nations Environment Fire Management Today 16 mentioned in this special issue) were news/2016/12/06/indonesias-palm- others]. 2002. The amount of carbon established between 2010 and 2015. oil-certifcation-struggling-for-global- released from peat and forest fres in recognition.html. [Date accessed Indonesia during 1997. Nature. 420: unknown]. 61–65. Commonly, there is a disconnect Huijnen, V.; Wooster, M.J.; Kaiser, J.W. [and Saharjo, B.H. 2016. Indonesian forest and between the state of knowledge others]. 2016. Fire carbon emissions over land fres. Bogor, Indonesia: IPB Press. (science) and policymakers and the maritime southeast Asia in 2015 largest 177 p. decisions they make. Uncertainties since 1997. Scientifc Reports. 6. DOI: Spolar, C.; Matthias, S.; Ryan, O.; Li, C., eds. 10.1038/srep26886. 2016. The great land rush—Indonesia: play a role in policy lags across ISDR (International Strategy for Disaster saving the Earth. FT Investigations. environmental issues, especially Reduction). [N.d.]. Global Wildland Fire The Financial Times. March 1. https:// extremely complex and shifting Network. http://www.fire.uni-freiburg. ig.ft.com/sites/land-rush-investment/ issues. Fortunately, in the case of de/GlobalNetworks/globalNet.html. [Date indonesia/. (21 November 2016). Indonesia, there is no debate on the accessed unknown]. Stockwell, C.E.; Jayarathne, T.; Cochrane, Jong, H.N. 2016. Landmark court ruling M.A. [and others]. 2016. Field need to act against future outbreaks expected to serve as deterrent. The measurements of trace gases and of fre and haze. The challenge now Jakarta Post. November 18. http://www. aerosols emitted by peat fres in Central is integrating recent science into thejakartapost.com/news/2016/11/18/ Kalimantan, Indonesia, during the 2015 the policy process while ensuring landmark-court-ruling-expected-to-serve- El Nio. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 16: 11711–11732. that policies are effective at the local as-deterrent.html. (1 December 2016). Kamaruzzaman, M. 2016. Health crisis Velicia, W.A. 2017. Peran curah hujan level. And it seems that the actors in management and health impacts of terhadap penurunan hotspot kebakaran the region—even corporate ones— vegetation fires. International workshop: tahun 2016 (The Role of rainfall in are rising to the task, rolling up their Forecasting emissions from vegetation decreasig of hotspot in the 2016 sleeves and getting to work. fires and their impacts on human forest fres). Bogor, Indonesia: Bogor health and security in South East Asia; Agricultural University (IPB) Faculty of Indonesian Agency for Meteorological, Forestry. 26 p. Bacheor thesis. Literature Cited Climatology and Geophysics; Jakarta, van der Werf, G. 2015. Global Fire Indonesia. Emissions Database: 2015 fre season— Crippa, P.; Castruccio, S.; Archer-Nicholls, S. Koplitz, S.N.; Mickley, L.J.; Marlier, Indonesia, daily emissions. http://www. [and others]. 2016. Population exposure to M.E. [and others]. 2016. Public health globalfredata.org/updates.html#2015_ hazardous air quality due to the 2015 fres impacts of the severe haze in Equatorial indonesia. (11 February 2016). in Equatorial Asia. Scientifc Reports. 6. Asia in September–October 2015: Wardhana, B. 2016. Impact of forests DOI: 10.1038/srep37074. demonstration of a new framework for and land fre on peatlands biodiversity Goldammer, J.G. 2007. History of equatorial informing fire management strategies and ecosystem services. International vegetation fres and fre research in to reduce downwind smoke exposure. workshop: Forecasting emissions from Southeast Asia before the 1997-98 Environmental Research Letters. 11 (9): vegetation fres and their impacts episode: a reconstruction of creeping 1–10. on human health and security in environmental changes. Mitigation and Lelieveld, J.; Evans, J.S.; Fnais, M. [and South East Asia; Indonesian Agency Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. others]. 2015. The contribution of for Meteorological, Climatology and 12: 13–32. outdoor air pollution sources to premature Geophysics; Jakarta, Indonesia. Goldammer, J.G.; Seibert, B. 1990. The mortality on a global scale. Nature. 525: impact of droughts and forest fres on 367–371. tropical lowland rain forest of Eastern Munthe, B.C. 2016. Indonesia’s Sampoerna Endnote Borneo. In: Goldammer, J.G., ed. Fire in Agro fned record sum for 2014 forest 1 Norway has since completed a similar $1 the tropical biota: ecosystem processes and fres. Reuters. December 21. https:// billion payout to Brazil (offered in 2008); global challenges. Ecol. Studies 84. Berlin, www.reuters.com/article/us-sampoerna- while there were many contributing factors, Heidelberg, Germany; New York: Springer- agro-fne/indonesias-sampoerna-agro- the unprecedented investment likely played Verlag: 11–31. fned-record-sum-for-2014-forest- a pivotal role in Brazil’s success in rapidly Hermansyah, A. 2016. Indonesia’s palm fres-idUSKCN10Q0YN. [Date accessed reducing deforestation rates. oil certifcation struggling for global unknown]. recognition. The Jakarta Post. December ■ Page, S.E.; Siegert, F.; Rieley, J.O. [and 6. http://www.thejakartapost.com/

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 17 WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT IN WEST AFRICA: A COMMUNITY EFFORT

Lucy Amissah and Richard K. Ninnoni

ildfres are a regular management as well as a broad feature in the landscape In West Africa, local spectrum of wildfre prevention W of most West African communities have education initiatives. countries and are increasingly responsible for forest degradation been involved in fre Additionally, postfre restoration and its effects on sustainable has been carried out to restore livelihoods in the region. Wildfres management over fre-damaged areas. Although these are also a threat to the success of several decades. efforts have contributed to the many initiatives that are being reduction of wildfre occurrences implemented in the region to curb in some countries of the region, the impacts of climate change. For annual wildfres continue to be of instance, the continuing occurrence Fire Management Context major concern for the sustainable of wildfre is likely to erode progress The effort to curb wildfre management of land resources being made under programs to occurrence has spanned many years (including forests, wildlife, and reduce emissions from deforestation and been at various levels involving agricultural crops) and, in extreme and forest degradation (better known state institutions, nongovernmental cases, the preservation of human life. as REDD+) in developing countries in organizations (NGOs), and local the region (Barlow and others 2012). communities. Many of these efforts Data from the National Aeronautics have been funded by bilateral and and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) multilateral institutions, NGOs, MODIS satellite from 2016 show Lucy Amissah is a senior scientist with and governmental institutions fres covering about a 1,400-mile the Biodiversity Conservation and across the region. Activities have (2,250-km) swath stretching from Ecosystem Services Division of the CSIR– Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, involved enactment of legislation, Ivory Coast through Ghana, Nigeria, Kumasi, Ghana; and Richard Ninnoni is development of national fre and Cameroon across the Central the environmental conservation manager management strategies and African Republic, Congo, and Gabon at the Ghana Forestry Commission, associated implementation plans, (fg. 1). These fres are a result of Resource Management Support Centre, development of national wildfre Kumasi, Ghana. a combination of factors related to policy, and the introduction of changes in climate, land use, and community-based forest fre livelihood activities. Recently, soil

Figure 1—Fires burning across West and Central Africa on February 6, 2017. Source: NASA (2017).

Fire Management Today 18 moisture levels shown by the Africa Since the early 1990s, the concept of volunteer Flood and Drought Monitor have hit their lowest rating levels across frefghting has become prominent across Africa. many areas in West Africa, which has led to more intense burning. The wildfre risk is likely to increase, with in nature and at the individual livestock) or even the protection of global temperatures reaching 1.1 oC community dweller level (where they entire landscapes. higher than in the late 19th century are less structured). (IPCC 2014). The authority and motivation to In recent times, when wildfres prevent and/or fght wildfres in NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite imagery became a regular phenomenon most cases are backed by legislation, using the visible infrared imaging in many countries in West Africa, policy, bylaws, or a combination of radiometer suite instrument on community-based organizations as these. In Ghana, for example, the February 6, 2017, showed fres well as individuals have constituted current legislation and policy on fre that were widespread in nature, the primary bodies involved in management are the Control and suggesting that these fres were wildfre management. Those involved Prevention of Bushfres Act of 1990 deliberately set to manage land have included volunteer frefghters, (P.N.D.C.L. 229) and the National (fg. 1). Farmers across West Africa civil society groups, local NGOs, Wildfre Management Policy of often use fre to clear the ground traditional authorities, and faith- 2006. Provisions in these pieces of unwanted plants and improve based organizations. The impetus of legislation and policy empower soil nutrients in the short term. for the formation of these groups, local communities to participate in Occasionally, these well-intended and their subsequent emphasis are wildfre management, with specifc fres get out of control and cause diverse, but important themes are the roles that include creating education extensive damage. protection of personal property (such and awareness, conducting fre as farms and farm products, including patrols, creating frebreaks (fg. 2), Therefore, the appropriate and regulated use of fre in West Africa will reduce the occurrence of wildfres signifcantly. Active participation by local people has been recognized as a prerequisite for the successful implementation of fre management programs in many regions, including West Africa (Goldammer and others 2002). It is important that appropriate annual budgetary allocations are made to sensitize communities and create awareness in them of wildfre prevention and control techniques, especially in the face of increasing global wildfre risks.

Community Involvement in Wildfre Management In West Africa, local communities have been involved in fre management over several decades through the application of fre in land use activities and suppression of occasional wildfres. These activities have largely been both communal Figure 2—Creation of a frebreak. Photos: Lucy Amissah.

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 19 mobilizing resources and logistics, Successful Involvement from the Ghana National Fire performing active fre suppression, of Volunteer Firefghting Service were trained in wildfre and enacting bylaws as well as management techniques. All making arrests and prosecutions of Groups volunteers were trained and offenders. Since the early 1990s, the concept structured into a common of volunteer frefghting has frefghting organization to ensure In Burkina Faso, decree number become prominent across Africa quick response to a distress call and 98–310/PRES/PM/MEE/MATS of and especially in Ghana; this was so that a team from one community 1998 and a National Fire Management largely in response to the pandemic could easily support another team Strategy set the framework within wildfres resulting from the El Nio in case of a fre outbreak. Each of which fre management activities are phenomena that plagued the country these volunteer frefghting groups carried out on rural lands. The law in the early 1980s. The economy developed a local code of conduct to clearly recognizes that fre is a tool was in distress because large tracts ensure discipline. and therefore certain conditions must of cocoa farms and forests—the be respected when handling it (Mäkelä mainstays of the economy—were After the WFMP ended, these and Hermunen 2007). Therefore, destroyed by wildfres. As the volunteer frefghting groups became fre management activities are government struggled to repair largely defunct for lack of logistics planned and implemented locally in a the damage done, citizens felt the and support. Under a new program, participatory manner by communities need to volunteer through various the Forest Investment Programme to ensure that fre is used more safely economic recovery programs, funded by the World Bank, a as a tool for sustainable management number of the defunct volunteer of natural resources. groups from previous initiatives (including the WFMP) are being In Ivory Coast, a wildfre fghting A regional center of revived and reequipped. In addition, strategy has been implemented excellence for raising communities are trained to develop by SODEFOR (Société de community wildfre management Développement des Forêts) over the the fre management plans to guide their actions. past 2 decades. The strategy focuses capacity of institutions on using the services of village fre and civil society would Impact of Community committees. Each village committee Eforts on Wildfre is made up of 10 members. Equipped be helpful. with appropriate equipment (such Occurrences as a fretruck, communication The initiatives on fre prevention equipment, and backpack pumps), and control, implemented in the members are assigned to manage including volunteer frefghting. close collaboration with local a forest or reforestation zone. Many volunteer frefghters have communities, have had a positive been recruited and trained under impact on agricultural production. In the initial implementation of the various projects, such as the forest In the 1990s, most farmers shifted to strategy, village committees were fre management project in Ghana the cultivation of annual crops such made to work only in the dry season. funded by the International Tropical as maize due to annual wildfres However, the implementation of the Timber Organization and the wildfre (Amissah and others 2011). However, strategy has been reviewed more management project (WFMP) funded there is currently renewed interest recently, and the village committees by the Dutch Government in the in the cultivation of perennial crops now work on fre management- Forest–Savanna Transition Zone of such as cocoa in some farming related activities all year around, Ghana. communities in the Forest–Savanna but with an emphasis on the dry Transition Zone of Ghana. season. The activities of such groups Under the WFMP, volunteer include creation of awareness of frefghting squads were formed Available records from the Forestry fre risk, creation of frebreaks, and in 234 communities, with a total Commission of Ghana indicate a the mobilization of community strength of 4,482 volunteers. In sharp decline of fre occurrence in members as frefghters in the event addition, 497 feld staff from the some communities. The frequency of of a fre occurrence. Forest Services Division of the wildfre occurrences in the Forest– Ghana Forestry Commission and Savanna Transition Zone of Ghana Fire Management Today 20 has shown a signifcant decrease from 247 wildfres in the 2015–16 247 fre season to 24 in the 2016–17 fre 268 season (fg. 3). The estimated total 235 area affected by wildfres over the 218 225 same period decreased from 345,504 acres (139,880 ha) in 2015–16 to 9,554 acres (3,868 ha) in the 2016– 17 season. The decrease in the area affected by wildfres from the 2015– 16 season to the 2016–17 season was 24 about 97 percent.

The observed trend is attributable to several factors, including good fre weather conditions during the reporting period. Another Figure 3—The number of wildfres in the Forest–Savanna Transition Zone of Ghana factor was extensive countrywide showed a sharp decline in 2016–17 from previous fre seasons. Source: Annual Report on awareness creation carried out Wildfre Incidences, Forestry Commission 2017. by community groups, local government agents, and volunteer • Irregular payment of premiums to based fre management is being frefghting groups. Furthermore, fre committees (in Ivory Coast), promoted. In Ghana, a manual for effective presuppression measures • Delay and inadequate supply of community-based fre management (such as creating frebreaks and equipment, and has been produced through a fre conducting regular patrols), • Disbandment of volunteer management and postfre restoration especially in fre-prone areas, frefghter groups/committees project funded by the International have contributed to reduction in after the fre season. Tropical Timber Organization and occurrence and spread of wildfres is expected to guide communities in some communities. Similar Additionally, with access to tools and in the development of their wildfre reduction in wildfre incidence was equipment lacking, tree branches management plans. observed in Burkina Faso after the and cutlasses are the main tools introduction of community-based used by volunteer groups and Conclusions and fre management approaches. other community members for Recommendations for suppressing moderate fres in some Future Work Challenges to Community- countries (such as Ghana). During larger and more intense wildfres, In many countries across West Led Fire Management the communities are usually Africa, volunteers continue to work Today, although many community rendered helpless. on fre management despite the members are enthusiastic about many challenges and limitations. volunteering to help manage fres Most initiatives focus on the training They do so, in part, out of motivation across West Africa, the success of volunteer frefghting groups. to protect farms and property. To stories are mixed due to several However, a study by IUCN/FORIG ensure the sustainability of the work challenges. Principal among these (2011) revealed that, during wildfre of volunteer frefghting groups are: occurrences, most community and village committees that are at members react swiftly to assist the forefront of fre prevention and • Nonpayment of insurance and in their suppression. The study control, many issues need to be inadequate incentives and logistics recommended that training in fre urgently addressed. (in Ghana), prevention and control need not target only volunteer frefghters Efforts should be made to develop but can extend to all social groups or identify more sustainable funding within the community. No explicit sources for wildfre management fre management plans exist in most activities that are not totally communities, although community- dependent on donors (for example,

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 21 by facilitating the creation of a and civil society would be helpful in Bangkok, Thailand: FAO Regional Office national wildfre management fund). this regard. for Asia and the Pacific: 33–52. Goldammer, J.G. 2013. Enhancing the In addition, there is the need dialogue and efficiency of cooperation to improve political support for We therefore propose seeking in wildland fire management in the mainstream wildfre management in international support to set up Asian region: an action plan for 2014- government institutions. To achieve a regional fre management 2015. In: Proceedings of the International this, developing policy briefs on resource center for Sub-Saharan Symposium on Commemorating the Establishment of the Pan-Asia Wildland wildfre problems is recommended, Africa, similar to those established Fire Network & UNISDR Pan-Asia along with highlighting success in Southeast Europe/Caucasus Wildland Fire Network Meeting 2013: stories from around West Africa. (in 2010), Eastern Europe (in Setting up the secretariat and regional fire A strategy to raise further funds 2013), Central Asia (in 2015), resource centers. Seoul, Republic of Korea: for wildfre management activities Southeast Asia (in 2017), and now Korea Forest Research Institute: 5–19. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate should be part of the annual budget in South America and in Central Change). 2014. Climate change 2014: for each nation’s institution(s) Eurasia/Russia (both in 2017–18) Synthesis report. Contribution of responsible for natural resource (Goldammer 2013). Working Groups I, II, and III to the Fifth management. The strategy should Assessment Report. Core Writing Team; Pachauri, R.K.; Meyer, L.A., eds. Geneva, include timely provision of basic Literature Cited Switzerland: IPCC. 151 p. frefghting tools and protective Amissah, L.; Kyereh, B.; Agyeman, V. IUCN/FORIG (International Union for clothing for local community groups 2011. Wildfires as dominant force driving Conservation of Nature/Forestry tasked with community-based fre farming systems in the forest transition Research Institute of Ghana). 2011. Fire- management. zone of Ghana. Ghana Journal of Forestry. management and post-fre restoration 27(2): 52–65. with local community collaboration in Barlow, J.; Parry, L.; Gardner, T.A. [and Ghana. Final technical report. [Place Communities or countries that have others]. 2012. The critical importance of of publication unknown]: [Publisher developed safe, effective, and effcient considering fire in REDD+ programs. unknown]. 46 p. wildfre management strategies Biological Conservation. 154: 1–8. Mäkelä, M.; Hermunen, T., eds. 2007. Fire should share their success stories Goldammer, J.G.; Frost, P.G.; Jurvélius, management on rural lands in Burkina Faso: a community-based approach. and transfer the corresponding M. [and others]. 2002. Community participation in integrated forest fire Helsinki, Finland: Ministry for Foreign technologies to regions where management: experiences from Africa, Affairs of Finland. 55 p. expertise, technologies, or systems Asia and Europe. In: Moore, P.; Ganz, D.; NASA (National Aeronautics and Space are lacking. A regional center Tan, L.C. [and others], eds. Communities Administration). 2017. World fire image in flames: proceedings of an international gallery. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_ of excellence for raising the fre pages/fires/main/world/index.html. [10 management capacity of institutions conference on community involvement in fire management. RAP Pub. 2002/25. October 2017]. ■

Fire Management Today 22 WILDFIRES IN THE HINDU KUSH–HIMALAYAN REGION AND COMMUNITY-LED FIRE MANAGEMENT IN NEPAL AND BHUTAN

Sundar Prasad Sharma and Kinley Tshering

n countries of the South Asia Table 1—Wildfre-related deaths and region, wildfres commonly occur Wildfres in high-altitude injuries in South Asia, 2010–17. I during the hot, dry, and windy Year Country Killed Injured summer seasons and are often Hindu Kush–Himalayan Bhutan 2 0 associated with agricultural burning. India 11 6 ecosystems drive the 2010 In Nepal, incidents of forest fre have Nepal 9 35 been increasing as summer seasons destruction of pristine Pakistan 5 0 India 5 0 have gotten drier and hotter in biodiversity, including 2011 recent years; the number of hot dry Nepal 1 8 days are increasing also, as compared the habitats of many Bhutan 6 23 India 4 2 to the recent past. 2012 rare species. Nepal 5 0 India 2 16 These wildfres not only contribute 2013 Nepal 2 1 to regional and global challenges India 3 5 such as smoke pollution but also Wildfres in the 2014 Nepal 21 36 threaten local communities, High-Altitude Himalaya 2015 India 2 1 economies, and cultures. This Wildfres in high-altitude Hindu India 21 21 2016 recent and increasing trend of Kush–Himalayan ecosystems are a Nepal 4 5 wildfres in the southern stretch major driver in the destruction of India 5 11 of the Hindu Kush–Himalayan 2017 pristine biodiversity, including the Nepal 0 1 region is particularly devastating habitats of many rare species. Much 2010– All 108 171 for the fragile Himalayan ecology. of the high-altitude Himalayan 17 Ecosystems and communities region and the adjoining lowlands Note: Data were not collected or not available are in general very vulnerable to have been impacted by incidences for all of South Asia, so the actual number wildfres, not to mention secondary of deaths and injuries in the region is likely of extreme seasonal drought, higher. Source: GFMC (2010–2017). disasters like landslides and revealing the overall underlying fash foods, which often follow moisture defcit in the region. The disastrous wildfres. vulnerability of South Asia to climate In 2009, wildfres were particularly variability and wildfre incidence devastating in terms of human during these droughts increases the casualties in Nepal and India. potential for fre to cause major Forty-nine people died, including 13 Sundar Prasad Sharma is coordinator of damages, including fatalities soldiers, and 9 people were seriously the United Nations Offce for Disaster Risk and injuries, loss of property, injured while fghting fres in Nepal. Reduction (UNISDR)–Regional South Asia In India, 30 people died and 21 were Wildland Fire Network and a district soil serious degradation of forests, conservation offcer with the Nepalese changes to ecosystem properties, injured. Table 1 shows documented Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, and deterioration of social and incidences of wildfre-related death Kathmandu, Nepal; and Kinley Tshering, economic conditions in some land and injury in South Asian countries also a member of the UNISDR–Regional use systems and natural vegetation from 2010 to 2017. Firefghters, South Asia Wildland Fire Network, is soldiers, and police were frequently the chief forestry offcer at the Forest types. The increase of climate Protection and Enforcement Division, extremes and its consequences are among the killed and injured. Nepal Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Royal clearly attributable to regional and thankfully had a historic zero-fatality Government of Bhutan, Thimphu, Bhutan. global climate change. year in 2017 (GFMC 2010–17). Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 23 Transboundary Fires and In 2009, wildfres were particularly devastating in Haze Pollution terms of human casualties in Nepal and India. Fires occurring in the highlands of Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan, and the northern part of Nepal at altitudes from 8,860 to 12,470 feet (2,700–3,800 m) above sea level often cross national borders, especially during the dry winter fre season (November to January) (Schmidt-Vogt 1990). By contrast, fres are more common in lowlands in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region during the hot, dry, and windy summer season (February to May) (also associated with agricultural burning). Observations indicate that the occurrence of wildfre is increasing because of regional warming and extended dry spells. The southern slopes of the mountains are primarily affected since they are generally warmer and drier compared to northern slopes and are therefore exposed to high Figure 1—Nepal has seen an increasing incidence of damaging wildfres, as shown in human pressure. this image from March 12, 2009, taken from the MODIS Aqua satellite belonging to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Earth Observatory. The image Transboundary wildfres and haze shows 141 fres, which severely burned much of the high Himalayan national parks and pollution are an emerging issue in conservation areas in Nepal. Smoke from those wildfres crossed the Indian border to the South Asia. Globally, fre is the most south. Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. important disturbance agent in vegetation cover worldwide, affecting Asia region are human caused. Also, community resilience and adaptation from 740 million to 990 million consistent with elsewhere, people in to wildfre disasters must involve acres (3–4 million km2) annually the region have a general perception all stakeholders concerned, and it (Goldammer 2013). that fre is the main driver of forest includes the incorporation of recent degradation. However, because the scientifc knowledge. What is crucial There is clear evidence of the livelihoods of mountain people is that this “new” scientifc knowledge historical role and timescale of fre are mostly subsistence based (the is combined with local/indigenous in many fre-dependent ecosystems. economy is agricultural) and knowledge and implemented at the The current trend shows increasing people rely heavily on sustainable community level. use of fre in land use and land use vegetation cover for their survival, change as well as an increase of wildfre damages can wreak havoc. Nepal destructive wildfres (uncontrolled In 2007, a three-level wildland fre and unwanted fres) (fg. 1). It is widely regarded that management project for Nepal was community-led fre management funded by the German Foreign Offce is a system/method implemented and implemented by the Global Fire Community Involvement by a rural community based solely in Wildland Fire Monitoring Center, in collaboration on indigenous knowledge and skill. with Nepal’s Department of Forests Management: Cases From This is in fact somewhat misleading and the Regional South Asia Wildland Nepal and Bhutan because the system is a dynamic Fire Network (fg. 2). The project process in a context of disaster risk effectively gathered multiple kinds As in most countries around the reduction. The task of increasing world, almost all fres in the South of experiences from the community, Fire Management Today 24 Transboundary wildfres and haze pollution are an emerging issue in South Asia. district, and national levels. Since then, 67 fre management volunteer groups (with 20 to 30 persons per group) have been successfully formed in different forest management regimes in Nepal (see the sidebar on the following page); each group has been outftted with frefghting Figure 2—Community-led participatory forest fre management fow diagram. Source: handtools and safety gear. Sharma 2012.

The community-led fre community, and graduates. group has been involved in planning management planning process With support from the National and implementing community involved: Adaptation Programme for Action, fre management plans for a more the frst forest fre management effective establishment of fre • Identifying users, expectations community groups were formed in management at the grassroots level. (needs) of users, and geographic 2015. To date, 20 community forest planning areas; fre management groups have been The Royal Government has long • Identifying zones, changes, established across the country. recognized the need for integration contrasts, conditions, and They received basic frefghting of community and volunteer services physical features in the village equipment and hands-on training in effective prevention and control environment; and in frefghting skills, personal safety, of forest fres in Bhutan. The current • Presenting and analyzing and basic forest fre behavior. Each mechanism for community-led information on land use, forests, water and other resources, and risk zones (participatory resource mapping).

Three principles were followed:

• Inclusion of the perspectives of all interest groups (inclusive and gender balance), • Recognition of indigenous knowledge on fre management, and • Incorporation of training components within the planning process.

Bhutan The forest fre volunteer program began in 2008. The members, mostly from Thimphu, included Forest fre volunteers conducting a door-to-door awareness campaign in local civil servants, students, the business communities. Photo: Forest Fire Management Section, Forest Protection and Enforcement Division. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 25 Community-Level Fire Management Training in Nepal

Fire management courses are tailored to villagers and other members of a community forest user group to allow them to develop their own fre management plan and fre risk maps. Each course features:

• Participation-oriented tools for community-led fre management planning; • Training designed for application to any village environment in Nepal; and • Creative training formats, including role play, where participants act as instructors.

Participatory curriculum development involving trainees, Hetauda, Nepal, 2007. Photo: Sundar P. Sharma.

A model frefghting volunteer group was formed in Hetauda, Makawanpur, Nepal, with support from the German Foreign Offce and the Global Fire Monitoring Center in 2007. Photo: Sundar P. Sharma.

Orientation training in fre management for a community volunteer group in Sundevi Community Forest, Kanchanpur district, Nepal, implemented by the Nepal Forest Fire Management Chapter and supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the WWF Nepal in 2012. Photo: Nepal Forest Fire Management Chapter.

Fire Management Today 26 Forest fre volunteers in Bhutan being trained by experts from the Department of Forests and Park Services. Photo: Forest Fire Management Section, Forest Protection and Enforcement Division.

• Fire management can be an Fire is used by the rural population as a traditional essential part of ecosystem management (not all fres are tool for clearing and managing agricultural and destructive). Hazard reduction pastoral lands. activities such as prescribed burning, fuel removal, and freline construction are also carried out to prevent fres from destroying planning and for volunteers in managing agricultural and pastoral important land management the prevention and suppression lands. It is also used in gathering zones, assets, and infrastructure. of wildfres will be scaled up in nontimber forest products and in • Sustainable management and the 12th Five Year Plan by the hunting and herding. Uncontrolled protection of vegetation cover Department of Forests and Park and potentially catastrophic fres provide goods and services, Services, Royal Government of are therefore common during the including nontimber forest Bhutan. It is expected that all dry season. products and recreation. They 205 administrative blocks in all • Uncontrolled fres in countries also maintain biological diversity, 20 districts will be covered under in South Asia lead to serious mitigate the consequences block- and district-level fre degradation of forests and of climate change, conserve management plans. The volunteer other vegetation types as well watersheds, improve air quality, groups and communities will be the as deterioration of social and and help to reduce poverty key implementers of these plans. economic conditions in some through livelihood support for land use systems, along with rural populations. In assessing the fre situation in regional pollution (for example, • Nepal has diverse ecosystems, South Asia in general and Nepal and the so-called Asian Brown socioeconomic and cultural Bhutan in particular, the following Cloud—a severe regional settings, and vegetation types points need to be considered: pollution phenomenon generated resulting from a wide range of by the accumulating effects land use systems and climatic • Fire is used by the rural population of agricultural burning and conditions. The result is diverse as a traditional tool for clearing and industrial pollution). fre regimes and vulnerabilities. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 27 • There is a lack of local, national, There is a lack of not only hampers suppression and regional capability in fre and prevention efforts but also research and management, local, national, and impedes the application of science- including frefghting, monitoring, regional capability based techniques. Another critical early warning, and ecological area is the lack of adequate and socioeconomic impact in fre research and manpower for fre management- assessment. The facilitation of management. related activities. Therefore, international cooperation in fre community-led initiatives are being management in countries in institutionalized to garner greater South Asia is also lacking. public support and decentralize fre management activities. National and Regional • Translated and adapted EuroFire Implications competency standards and training Despite several national, regional, materials for use in Bhutanese, and international initiatives Several initiatives were adopted Hindi, and Nepalese; in countries in the South Asia after the 2007 foundation of the • Translation of fre management region, wildfre challenges remain United Nations Offce for Disaster glossaries into local languages to unchanged while impacts are Risk Reduction–Regional South Asia support common understandings; increasing due to lack of concerted Wildland Fire Network, established • Development of additional fre interventions. There is an in Nepal by the Global Fire management programs/projects immediate need for international Monitoring Center. National issues and the search for international cooperation and collaboration in fre and concerns were raised at several support for their implementation; management in the Hindu Kush– national, regional, and international • Creation of an enabling Himalayan region. forums and garnered attention in the environment for all possible international community. National- donors, including national, Literature Cited level activities included a three- international, bilateral, and level wildland fre management GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center). multilateral entities as well as 2010–17. Annual global wildland fre project for Nepal, a Nepal forest private foundations, for the fatalities and damages reports. GFMC/ and wildfre management project, delivery of fnancial, technical, IWPM/UNISDR Global Wildland Fire multistakeholders’ roundtable and other support for wildland Network Bulletins. 14–22. http://www. meetings, and workshops fire.uni-freiburg.de/media/bulletin_ fre management in countries in news.htm. [Date accessed unknown]. supported by different international South Asia; Goldammer, J.G., ed. 2013. Vegetation organizations. At the regional as • Wildland fre management fres and global change: challenges for well as Pan-Asia/Pacifc level, several involving local community-led concerted international action. A White consultations and training programs and participatory approaches Paper directed to the United Nations and were conducted. Similarly, at the International Organizations. Remagen- at the forest user group level, Oberwinter, Germany: Kessel Publishing international level, national and incorporating feld-level forestry House. 398 p. regional issues were discussed at the and security personnel as a model Schmidt-Vogt, D. 1990. Fire in high- last three International Wildland strategy for countries in South altitude forests of the Nepal Himalaya. In: Fire Conferences between 2007 Asia; and Goldammer, J.G.; Jenkins, M.J., eds. Fire and 2015. in ecosystem dynamics: Mediterranean • Establishment of a fre and northern perspectives. The Hague, management resource center for Netherlands: SPB Academic Publishing: A result of these many regional the South Asia region, to be based 191–199. network activities in the South Asia in Nepal. Sharma, S.P. 2012. Forest fre regimes in region and beyond is a roadmap for the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region and community-based fre management in future priorities, including: In sum, wildfres pose a serious Nepal. International Forest Fire News. 42: threat to fre-sensitive ecosystems 62–63. • Enhanced international and communities in the Hindu ■ cooperation and collaboration in Kush–Himalayan region. With fre management, emphasizing increasing urbanization, cities and community-led approaches that communities are encroaching on incorporate scientifc tools for fre fre-prone areas. The lack of trained detection and monitoring; personnel and applied research Fire Management Today 28 WILDFIRES AND FIRE MANAGEMENT IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE, AND MIDDLE EAST REGIONS

Gavriil Xanthopoulos and Nikola Nikolov

he Eastern Mediterranean, diffcult sociopolitical postconfict Southeastern Europe, and Weekend/summer conditions on the one hand and T Middle East regions have serious economic crises on the experienced tremendous political, houses are embedded other have affected many aspects of social, and economic changes in in increasingly life and development. In addition the last 3 decades. This period to the number of migrants, the has seen population movement fammable vegetated number of international tourists areas. has increased steeply—all of them equally at risk of becoming wildfre Gavriil Xanthopoulos is a forest fre causers and victims. researcher for the Hellenic Agricultural Organization “Demeter,” Institute of through internal displacement, Additionally, very high income and Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, Athens, border-crossing refugees, and Greece; and Nikola Nikolov is the head of wealth disparity in many countries, the Regional Fire Monitoring Center and a general migration and immigration; with the great majority of people in professor at the Faculty of Forestry, Skopje, in some cases, even borders have poverty, have led to the development the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. shifted. Armed conficts and of fre-prone areas with highly

Figure 1—Rural population evolution as a percent of total population in seven countries in the region. Source: Gavriil Xanthopoulos, based on data from IndexMundi (2017). Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 29 Figure 2—Evolution of the annual area burned in Greece, 1955–2016. Source: Gavriil Xanthopoulos, based on Greek Forest Service and Greek Fire Service annual reports. contrasting characteristics regarding structure of countries in the Eastern The consequences of demographic settlement planning and function, Mediterranean, Southeastern change for wildfres are quite building construction quality, and Europe, and Middle East regions as evident in Greece, for example, population behavior. The young are well as their fnancial conditions. where the rural population as a feeing unemployment and poverty For instance, the average age of the percent of the total population in rural areas and moving to big people remaining in farmsteads and has dropped from 44 percent in cities, leaving the old behind. At the villages is constantly increasing. 1960 to 22 percent in 2016 (fg. same time, the wealthy can afford Most important, however, are 1). Concurrently, the annual area to fee overcrowded, polluted, and the consequences of reduced burned grew substantially (fg. increasingly warming cities to land cultivation: increasing fuel 2), despite signifcantly increased build their residences on the urban loads, uncontrolled ecological investments for wildfre suppression fringes. Weekend/summer homes succession, replacement of after 1998 (fg. 3), when frefghting are embedded in increasingly traditional agropastoral land use responsibilities were moved from fammable vegetated areas. The by industrial forest plantations the Greek Forest Service to the desired aesthetics and air quality in some countries, and the Fire Service. The lack of results of the countryside may become a resulting reduction of breaks in can largely be attributed to a death trap, mirroring the situation fuel continuity have led to an very low emphasis on and budget in the Western United States or unprecedented increase in the for fre prevention, as opposed parts of Australia. fammability of landscapes. The to spending on suppression. On increasing average size, intensity, average, the annual area burned Changing Demographics: and severity of wildfres throughout from 1979 to 1997 was 117,756 the Mediterranean Basin and its acres (47,654 ha), nearly identical Impacts on Wildfres vicinity are evident. to the 114,756 acres (46,440 ha) The rural exodus (fg. 1) has greatly burned annually from 1998 to affected the demographics and social 2016, even though investments

Fire Management Today 30 Figure 3—Fire suppression budget evolution in Greece, 1989–2014. The graph includes total fre-related budgets of the Fire Service; the Air Force unit MAEDY, which operates the feet of light frefghting planes; and the Forest Service, which lost the responsibility for forest frefghting in 1998. The cost of the feet of Canadair water bombers is not included. Source: Gavriil Xanthopoulos, based on Greek Forest Service and Greek Fire Service annual reports. in frefghting in the latter period population dropped from 71.52 7 decades, and they have become increased signifcantly. Despite percent in 1948 to 11.79 percent grasslands, shrublands, or even higher investments, in 2007 in 1994. As a result, large areas forests. That is one reason for the Greece experienced its worst fre of arable land and pastures have growing annual area burned (fg. 7). season in history, with 80 fatalities been abandoned in the last 6 to (mostly civilians) and 3,000 homes seriously damaged or destroyed. Furthermore, on July 23, 2018, a single fre that hit a wildland–urban interface area called Mati, which is situated next to the coast 16 miles (25 km) east of central Athens, destroyed the whole community, causing 99 fatalities (fgs. 4, 5, 6). The community and the citizens were totally unprepared for an intense wildfre.

The situation is similar in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The rural percentage of the population dropped from 72.4 percent in 1948 to 31 Figure 4—Burned buildings at the crest of the hill above the sea. People reached the sea percent in 2008; more specifcally, in panic, with the fre behind them, but access down the cliff towards the water was not the agrarian percentage of the always possible. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 31 Eforts to improve forest fre protection systems started in the early 1990s and strengthened during the last 10 to 15 years.

Political and Economic Crises: Impacts on Wildfres The 1990s were an extremely diffcult decade for Southeastern Figure 5—One of the extremely challenging paths along the cliff that many people used to get to the sea, with fre burning around them. Many people did not make it, while Europe due to the breakup of the those who made it to the sea had to wait for hours to be rescued by boats, some of them Federal Republic of Yugoslavia fnally drowning. and the creation of new countries. Ethnic conficts and civil war functioning market economies, industrial production, and economic affected all countries in the region which led to inferior economic growth dropped sharply in 2009. either directly or indirectly, exacting performance, declining living Unemployment rates, which had a high price. The impact of armed standards, rising unemployment, been decreasing from very high conficts and the legacy of the and poverty. Underdeveloped levels, are predicted to rise sharply former centrally planned economy infrastructure networks, limited again, and the level of public debt created obstacles to the adoption foreign direct investment, and weak remains very high across the region. of effective reforms and hindered administrative structures also pose After most Southeastern European socio-economic progress. Delayed signifcant challenges. countries performed well in the and often unimplemented reforms 2000s, studies show that almost all made it impossible to establish fully In addition, the global economic of their economies are declining crisis of 2007–8 has affected the or stagnating due to the economic region, raising additional fnancial crisis and the decrease in foreign constraints. External trade, direct investment.

Figure 6—One of the narrow streets near the sea where many people feeing with their cars were caught in a traffc jam with fames burning trees, structures, and cars around them. The photo, taken 4 days later and after the burned cars had been Figure 7—Evolution of the annual area burned in the former Yugoslav Republic of removed, shows a traffc jam at the same Macedonia, 1978–2016. Source: Regional Fire Monitoring Center, based on information point under “normal” conditions, without from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Supply and Public Enterprise fames, smoke, or panic. Macedonian Forests. Fire Management Today 32 Political, social, and economic changes have signifcantly infuenced fres on the landscape. Rural population decreases, changing age demographics, and land use changes worsened forest and rural fre problems due to increasing fre starts and fuel buildups. However, other factors have also contributed to variable fuel buildups across the region. Since the 1980s in Greece, for instance, the use of wood for heating and cooking has been gradually replaced by more convenient energy sources, a major reason for the accelerating Figure 8—A ferce wildfre burning on the fringes of the Greek capital Athens. The Mt. accumulation of fuels. In other Hymettos Fire on July 18, 2015, revealed the vulnerability of urban and periurban as well as protected areas and greenbelts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Photo: Gavriil Southeastern European countries, Xanthopoulos. the use of wood has continued, so fuel buildups have been less. Nevertheless, the Balkan countries gradually became aware of the Sharing fre management expertise between problem of landscape fres and have Southeast Europe and the countries of the begun investing in national fre protection systems. Near and Middle East has become a notable regional efort. Enhancing Fire Management Capabilities Efforts to improve forest fre frequency of disastrous fre seasons continue to be limited in this time of protection systems started in the (including numerous fatalities) fnancial diffculties, improvements early 1990s and strengthened that the effectiveness and effciency will depend on higher effectiveness during the last 10 to 15 years. of forest fre protection systems is and effciency of investments. However, it is evident from the inadequate and that improvements These in turn will come through generally growing area burned are needed (fg. 8). Because funding better utilization of scientifc across the region and the growing for fre management programs will knowledge and strengthened

Figure 9—The fnal seminar of the project called Enhancing of the Ground and Aerial Forest Fire Suppression Capacities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was supported by the USDA Forest Service and the Global Fire Monitoring Center and attended by fre management specialists from Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Photos: Regional Fire Monitoring Center. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 33 • Institutional and sectoral responsibilities in forest fre management, • Fire management on terrain contaminated by unexploded ordnance and landmines, • Specialized training and personnel, • Volunteer frefghters, • Specialized vehicles and equipment, • Participation of civil society, Figure 10—The frst Regional Consultation on Cross-boundary Cooperation in • Use of advanced data processing Fire Management was opened by the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Water and information systems (wildland Economy on November 11, 2016, in Skopje, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, fre early warning and decision Greece, Kosovo, and Serbia decided on high-priority actions to improve interoperability support systems), and in joint cross-boundary responses to wildfres. Photo: Regional Fire Monitoring Center. • Fire research and its application in forest and fre management. At a closing workshop for the regional study, a roadmap was In Lebanon, like in the Balkans, abandonment of developed for reducing wildfre disaster risk by focusing on high- land cultivation is the main driver of increasing priority strategic activities. Priorities landscape fammability. included focusing on fre prevention and strengthening international/ cross-boundary cooperation in fre management (REC 2015). regional cooperation, including the reduce the occurrence and impacts proactive support of nonstate actors. of wildfres in Southeastern Europe. Sharing Expertise Through To meet these challenges, in 2010 The regional analysis included the Regional Fire Monitoring Center recommendations for improvements International Cooperation was established in Skopje, former in the following areas related to International cooperation projects Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, forest fre management: with tangible results are achievable with the support of the Global Fire Monitoring Center and the Council of Europe’s Major Hazards Agreement (RFMC 2010a).

A regional analysis commissioned by the Hungary-based Regional Environmental Center titled “Environment and Security Initiative: Addressing the Risk of Forest Fires in the South Eastern Europe” analyzed the situation in six Southeastern European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Former Yugoslav Republic of Madedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia) (Nikolov 2015). One of the goals of the project was to identify measures that could close the Figure 11—Abandoned terraces and collapsing former farmsteads in Lebanon’s Qadisha existing gaps in legislation, policy, Valley refect the trend of declining land cultivation and increasing fuel buildup and implementation, and enforcement to wildfre risk in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Photo: Global Fire Monitoring Center.

Fire Management Today 34 Figure 12—Forest fres burning in the mountain range of Golestan Province, Islamic Republic of Iran, close to the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan border. The satellite image (MODIS Aqua, 250-meter resolution) captured wildfres and smoke plumes on December 6, 2010. Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. by exchanging expertise in fre The consultation, an initiative by the effciency of fre management. Key management. For instance, the Global Fire Monitoring Center and recommendations included: Regional Fire Monitoring Center Regional Fire Monitoring Center, and the U.S. Department of was supported by the Secretariat • Sharing expertise in interagency Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service’s of the Council of Europe’s Major coordination and cross-boundary International Programs launched Hazards Agreement. cooperation in fre management, a project called “Enhancing of • Holding annual preparedness the Ground and Aerial Forest meetings and exercises, Fire Suppression Capacities in • Coordinating aerial frefghting, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Fire prevention activities and Macedonia” (RFMC 2010b). The must become a priority, • Providing early warning of project conveyed the experience wildfres near borders and timely and knowledge of the USDA Forest especially to maximize communication about other Service in coordinating ground the efectiveness of relevant fre management issues. and aerial resources in wildfre limited funding. suppression. Experts from the Sharing fre management expertise former Yugoslav Republic of between Southeastern Europe Macedonia and Serbia participated and the countries of the Near and and benefted from this cooperative Middle East has become a notable project (fg. 9). The regional consultation was regional effort. Cooperation between attended by 39 participants from Israel and its neighbors during fre In November 2016, in response to institutions, state organizations, emergencies in 2010 and 2016 has severe fre seasons in the region and nongovernmental organizations been followed by cooperative projects in the previous 10 years—and also responsible for fre management between Lebanon and the Islamic to the growing effectiveness of and land management in the former Republic of Iran. the national forest fre protection Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia systems and improving regional and neighboring countries (Albania, In Lebanon, like in the Balkans, cooperation—the frst Regional Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, and abandonment of land cultivation Consultation on Cross-boundary Serbia) (fg. 10). The consultation is the main driver of increasing Cooperation in Fire Management highlighted the contributions of landscape fammability. For instance, was organized in Skopje, former cross-boundary cooperation in the Qadisha Valley, a UNESCO Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. improving the effectiveness and World Heritage Site since 1998, is

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 35 Figure 13—The International Fire Management Week in Mazandaran, Kelarabad, Islamic Republic of Iran, was opened by Colonel Ghasem Sabz Ali, Commander of the Forest Guard (Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Management Organization). The meetings were an opportunity to exchange fre management methods with neighboring countries. Local hand crews demonstrated their rapid-attack equipment and initial-attack skills. Photos: Global Fire Monitoring Center. in a region where landscapes have and regional cooperation in fre management. Reducing the been shaped by hundreds of years of management was discussed (fg. 13). number of fres, particularly land cultivation. Recent changes in In Greece, the Government during high fre danger demographics and land use, along responded to the wildfre disaster conditions, limits the occurrence with political instability, resulted that affected Mati on July 23, of severe events that exceed the in dramatic changes to the Qadisha 2018. Prime Minister Alexis suppression capacity of national Valley. As the intensive cultivation of Tsipras established an independent fre management organizations. olive groves, terraces, and gardens commission headed by Professor The correlation between high fre ended, live and dead vegetation Johann Georg Goldammer of the incidences and very large fres accumulated, resulting in a growing Global Fire Monitoring Center and has been recognized by studies wildfre hazard (fg. 11). Integrated staffed by well-known Greek forest internationally. Furthermore, the fre management principles have fre experts to study the underlying potential for arson as a method therefore been introduced to causes of the worsening fre of terrorism becomes a challenge strengthen local community-based problem in the natural, cultural, and for planning. The terrorism threat participatory approaches aimed periurban landscapes of the country and the lessons learned from fre at protecting the area’s natural, and to present a forward-looking disasters since 2007, including the cultural, and spiritual values from plan that will address the current weaknesses of fre management wildfre (GFMC 2010). gaps and weaknesses and will guide organizations, have spurred fre future fre management. prevention efforts. Close cooperation between two of the Global Fire Monitoring Center’s In February 2019, the commission The European research project regional wildland fre networks (for handed over the report to the “Linking Civil Protection and Southeast Europe/Caucasus and Government of Greece. The Planning by Agreement on for Central Asia) also resulted in recommendations for new holistic Objectives” developed a disaster cooperative strategic conferences. approaches in landscape fre prevention methodology. The The meetings were held in the management are currently being methodology was applied to forest South Caucasus and the Middle reviewed by the Parliament and fre prevention in many parts East, a region in which fre-sensitive the key ministries concerned of Greece from 2013 to 2014. mountain forests are increasingly (Goldammer and others 2019). The approach was participatory; affected by climate change and it involved convening local wildfres (fg. 12). In 2016, the frst Fire Prevention authorities, volunteers, and International Fire Management the public to discuss problems Fire prevention activities must Week was held in the Islamic associated with local forest fres. become a priority, especially Republic of Iran, where the EuroFire The goal was to identify the most to maximize the effectiveness Competency Standards were important fre causes, to reach an of limited funding for fre introduced in the Persian language agreement on specifc prevention

Fire Management Today 36 objectives, and to develop ideas Fire Suppression time, ground frefghting must for risk mitigation through open improve. European fre managers Many weaknesses in fre brainstorming (Greiving and others must revive forgotten methods, management, including fre 2012). An ad hoc working group, such as the use of prescribed fre suppression, have become evident in formed on the spot by volunteering and backfring techniques, especially the last 10 to 15 years throughout participants, undertook to act on the when high-intensity wildfres the Eastern Mediterranean region. ideas with support from the others preclude direct attack. Firefghter Many countries have witnessed and from local authorities as needed; training is required for adopting terrible disasters. During the 2007 the results were encouraging. these tools and for improving overall fre season, Greece suffered 80 ground fre suppression. fatalities; international assistance An additional initiative is a handbook from numerous countries in the under the title “Defense of Villages, form of both aerial resources and Training in Fire Farms and Other Assets Against ground crews helped the country Management and Wildfres: Guidelines for Rural bring the blazes under control Populations, Local Communities and Suppression (Xanthopoulos 2007). Similarly, Municipality Leaders in the Balkan the Mount Carmel Fire in Israel In some of the Balkan countries, Region,” published by the Global on December 2–4, 2010, claimed frefghters are recruited from Fire Monitoring Center under the 44 lives. Because Israel lacked the the forestry sector’s permanent Council of Europe’s Major Hazards necessary resources to control the employees (such as forest workers Agreement. The handbook was blaze, especially from the air, 17 and forestry engineers) but generally translated from English into other countries responded to Israel’s call only for fre suppression activities, languages and adapted for use in for assistance and generously gave not for prevention. Emergency Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, aid, including the use of frefghting responders are often given some the former Yugoslav Republic of planes. In 2011, in response to the level of specialized training in Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro, Mount Carmel Fire, Israel formed fghting wildfres to complement and Serbia, with more languages to an aerial frefghting squadron their primary roles in civil follow (GWFN, n.d.). consisting of seven Air Tractor protection, urban frefghting, or F–802 planes. military service. But when wildfre The examples above highlight the suppression is only one aspect of the need to: Since these events, there have frefghters’ work rather than their been numerous cases of cross- professional focus—as is the general • Involve the public in and inform border cooperation in the region, rule in most Balkan countries— the public about efforts to reduce especially through aerial assistance. then their effectiveness falls short. fre starts, and An example was the Eurichou Fire It is therefore important that • Solicit public comment on and in Cyprus in June 2016, when the actors involved in fre prevention contributions toward making country received aerial resources and suppression activities acquire wildland–urban interface and from France, Great Britain, Greece, additional skills and specialized periurban areas (and people Israel, and Italy. Unfortunately, equipment to meet all the challenges themselves) safer in the event of due to a prolonged fnancial crisis of landscape-scale fre management. devastating fres. since 2009, Greece has been unable to maintain the sizable contracted Xanthopoulos and others (2016) Insightful and pragmatic approaches aerial resources it once could afford. give an overview of training systems based on evidence from around The national aerial feet of Canadair in Mediterranean Europe, with an Europe point to the need for CL–215s and CL–415s has continued emphasis on the Balkan countries. changes in legislation to support to deteriorate due to old age and The report discusses signifcant the development of Fire Smart imperfect maintenance. weaknesses in training, such as Territories, a new concept for the failure to consider the impacts sustainable land management. Fire With countries facing tough times of fre challenges in the context Smart Territories includes the use fnancially and wildfres becoming of what the authors call “global of fre and is based on training and more aggressive, future steps must change” (“planetary-scale changes empowering people (Tedim and include careful selection and better in the Earth system,” including others 2016). use of aerial resources. At the same changes in population, climate, resource use, energy development, Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 37 and other areas). Overall, more from historical development to approach. Natural Hazards Earth System advanced frefghter training is population characteristics and Science. 12: 1085–1107. GWFN (Global Wildland Fire Network). needed, including standardization from fnancial development to [N.d.]. Community-based fre and exchange of experiences environmental infuences on the management (CBFiM). http://gfmc. between countries. Training must forest fre problem. online/manag/CBFiM_11.html. (15 be specialized—specifcally tailored January 2018). to forest frefghting—because such Region-specifc diffculties will IndexMundi. 2017. Rural population as a percent of total population. https:// training is lacking in countries require locally tailored solutions— www.indexmundi.com/. [Date accessed where urban fre services carry the solutions that will achieve effective unknown]. responsibility for this task. and effcient fre management. Nikolov, N. 2015. Forest fres in South Rational, scientifcally based Eastern Europe: Regional report. REC During its European EuroFire fre management policy and Working Pap. Szentendre, Hungary: Regional Environmental Center for research project (2006–2008), the organization, supported by careful Central and Eastern Europe. 114 p. Global Fire Monitoring Center international knowledge transfer and http://www.themisnetwork.eu/uploads/ produced some very useful training strengthened regional cooperation, documents/Studies/Forest%20Fires%20 material that can form the basis are the best way forward. in%20SEE_Regional%20Report.pdf. (15 December 2017). for standardized forest frefghting REC (Regional Environmental Center). training (GFMC 2006). By early Literature Cited 2015. Addressing the risk of forest fres in 2016, the freely available EuroFire SEE. http://www.rfmc.mk/pdf/project2/ GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center). Forest%20fres-Roadmap.pdf. [Date Competency Standards and Training 2006. EuroFire. http://www.euro-fre.eu/. accessed unknown]. Materials had been translated for use (15 December 2017). RFMC (Regional Fire Management Center). GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center). in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and 2010a. About Regional Fire Monitoring 2010. Forest fre threat in Qadisha Valley, Herzegovina, Brazil (Portuguese), Center. http://www.rfmc.mk/about_ Lebanon: precautionary action to prevent us.php. (15 December 2017). Croatia, France, the former Yugoslav damage or destruction of the UNESCO RFMC (Regional Fire Management Center). Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, World Heritage Site. Report of an initial 2010b. Projects. http://www.rfmc.mk/ Germany, Greece, Iran, Korea, project. Submitted to UNESCO, Paris, projects.php. (15 December 2017). France. Freiburg, Germany: Global Fire Latin America (Spanish), Mongolia, Tedim, F.; Leone, V.; Xanthopoulos, G. Monitoring Center. 43 p. http://gfmc. Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, 2016. A wildfre risk management online/wp-content/uploads/GFMC- concept based on a social-ecological and Ukraine. In 2018, translations UNESCO-Quadisha-Valley-Lebanon-Fire- approach in the European Union: Fire into languages serving Southeast Report-Brief.pdf. (15 December 2017). Smart Territory. International Journal of Goldammer, J.G.; Xanthopoulos, G.; Asia will follow (in Indonesian, Disaster Risk Reduction. 18: 138–153. Dimitrakopoulos, A. [and others]. 2019. Malaysian, and Thai). Xanthopoulos, G. 2007. Olympic Flames. Report of the independent committee Wildfre. 16(5):10-18. tasked to analyze the underlying causes Xanthopoulos, G.; Daskalakou, E.; Kazakis, and explore the perspectives for the Region-Specifc Solutions G. 2016. State of the art on Wildland future management of landscape fres in Fire Fighting Training in the context of The challenges of forest fre Greece. Global Fire Monitoring Center. Global Change. Athens, Greece: Institute management in the Eastern 155 p. http://gfmc.online/wp-content/ of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems; uploads/FLFM-Greece-Committee- Mediterranean, Southeastern MedWildFireLab project; deliverable D6.1. Report-07-February-2019.pdf. (8 Europe, and Middle East regions 80 p. http://www.fria.gr/medwildfrelab/ February 2019). have much in common with the d6_1/fles/MedWildFireLab-Del6_1- Greiving, S.; Pratzler-Wanczura, S.; FINAL-with-appendix.pdf. (15 December challenges faced around the world. Sapountzaki, K. [and others]. 2012. 2017). However, the challenges are also Linking the actors and policies ■ associated with characteristics throughout the disaster management specifc to these regions, ranging cycle by “Agreement on Objectives”—a new output-oriented management

Fire Management Today 38 FIRE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES IN SOUTH AMERICA: COOPERATION AND INTEGRATION

Lara Steil, Patricio Sanhueza, and Marcos Giongo

eaders of Fire Management international assistance is effective Today may recall the wildfres Fires used for clearing and effcient if participating nations R burning in Chile in early have prepared agreements, protocols, 2017. Chile’s catastrophic wildfres and maintenance of and common and regularly exercised resembled last year’s extreme agricultural and pasture procedures. Therefore, the Regional fres affecting California, Canada, South America Wildland Fire Portugal, Russia, and South Africa. lands are the main Network, which is operating under It is obvious that fre regimes are causes for wildfres in the Global Wildland Fire Network changing in landscapes around and the United Nations International the world—and that the combined South America. Strategy for Disaster Reduction effects of climate and land use (UNISDR), took the initiative to change are leading factors in the strengthen and formalize cross- extended duration of fre seasons. pasture lands are the main causes boundary cooperation in fre of wildfres in South America. management (GWFN 2017). Associated with this development, the vulnerability of ecosystems and In the frst part of this article, we The activities of the regional people living therein is increasing. highlight the needs and progress network are under the Amazon South American landscapes are made in responding to the Cooperation Treaty Organization also a part of this trend—from the challenges of managing wildfre (ACTO), which is responsible lowland equatorial rain forests in the emergencies by cross-boundary for implementing the Amazon Amazon Basin, to the neotropical cooperation. In the second part, Cooperation Treaty signed in savannas, to the high-elevation we look at experiences in applying 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, forests of the Andes Mountains. the principles of Integrated Fire Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Fires used for clearing and Management in one of the natural and Venezuela. An important maintenance of agricultural and landscapes of the continent in precursor framework of regional order to reduce the vulnerabilities cooperation, ACTO takes action in of ecosystems and society to various thematic areas. One of these Lara Steil is an environmental analyst at wildfres and the impact on the is related to the implementation of the National Center for Prevention and global environment. an advisory and training program Combat of Forest Fires of the Brazilian that allows the strengthening Institute for Environment and Renewable of knowledge and capacities for Natural Resources (Instituto Brasileiro do Regional Cooperation Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais prevention and control of forest Renováveis), Brasilia, Brazil; Patricio in Wildfre Emergency fres. In this context, a proposal Sanhueza is a senior wildfre management Response under the title Regional Project for specialist for the Development and Strengthening of Capacities for the Investigation Department of the Chilean In recent years, some South Forest Service (Corporacin Nacional American countries faced extended Integrated Fire Management in the Forestal—CONAF), Santiago de Chile, droughts and severe fre seasons that Member Countries of ACTO has been Chile; and Marcos Giongo is a teacher exceeded the response capabilities of discussed among the eight countries at the Federal University of Tocantins the nations affected. In order to cope of the Amazon basin since 2017. The (Universidade Federal do Tocantins—UFT) proposal aims to support strategies and coordinator of the Environment with the wildfre emergencies, many Monitoring and Fire Management Center Governments have needed to rely proposed by the member countries (Centro de Monitoramento Ambiental upon the assistance of neighboring of ACTO to decrease wildfre e Manejo do Fogo—CeMAF), Gurupí, and distant countries. Mutual occurrence and their impacts. Tocantins, Brazil. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 39 First Targeted Steps In order to cope with wildfre emergencies, Towards Enhancing many Governments rely upon assistance from Efective Cross-Boundary neighboring and distant countries. Cooperation In May 2016, 9 months before the wildfre emergency in Chile, the within South America aimed between South American countries First Regional Symposium and at systematically enhancing through formal membership in and Consultation on Cooperation in preparedness and response to activities under the Regional South Cross-Boundary Fire Management wildfre emergencies through America Wildland Fire Network. was held in Parque Nacional Santa cross-border cooperation. The The symposium overcame the most Teresa, Uruguay. The symposium recommendations stressed, signifcant regional obstacle by was facilitated by the Global Fire among other things, the need for calling for guidelines and standard Monitoring Center (GFMC) and addressing vegetation fres in the operating procedures for enhancing sponsored by the German Federal context of climate change and interoperability among countries in Ministry for Food and Agriculture. the development of policies and cross-boundary fre management, The consultation was attended by actions with regard to mitigation notably to improve the effectiveness representatives of the forestry and and adaptation. Governments and effciency of cross-border fre services of Argentina, Brazil, were encouraged to consider cooperation and mutual assistance Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The Integrated Fire Management as a during wildfre emergencies. meeting addressed the exchange tool to meet their obligations under among the participating nations the Paris Agreement within the at national and regional levels of The 2017 Wildfre framework of the United Nations information on wildfre occurrence, Emergency in Chile and the Framework Convention on Climate fre management, and fre Change of 2015. Furthermore, Followup emergency response. Participating the recommendations called for Before the recommendations of countries were briefed about a systematic improvement of the consultation of 2016 could be international legal agreements and cooperation in fre management implemented, a severe and long- voluntary initiatives in cooperation on fre management, including the activities of UNISDR and the voluntary International Wildfre Preparedness Mechanism (IWPM 2017). The information presented included an introduction of training materials for capacity building in cross-boundary fre management, notably the presentation of the Spanish- and Brazilian-language versions of the EuroFire Competency Standards and Training Materials for future use in regional joint training and exercises in fre management and fre emergency response (GFMC 2006). The concept and draft of the International Fire Aviation Guidelines were introduced (IFAWG Figure 1—The time elapsed between request (red line) and arrival (green line) of 2017). international assistance (such as a fre crew, an aerial resource, or an incident management team) to Chile shows that some of the dispatched resources arrived The regional symposium’s after delays. After arrival, the foreign assistance needed to be accommodated, briefed, and deployed to the most critical fres—for more time-consuming delays. The development of recommendations delays reveal the need for enhancing preparedness and governance of multinational for offcial bilateral agreements incident management through protocols, standard operating procedures, and rules of or multilateral frameworks engagement. Source: Corporacin Nacional Forestal. Fire Management Today 40 Figure 2—Aerial view of smoke from 2017 wildfres in Chile (left) and a satellite image of wildfres (right) south of Concepcin, Chile, on the early afternoon of 25 January 2017 taken from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Terra satellite. Sources: Jordi Brull, Corporacin Nacional Forestal (left); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (right). lasting drought arrived in Chile. In April 2017, the GFMC and Conditions favored the large-scale The wildfre emergency the Chilean agencies concerned spread of extremely intense wildfres, with fre management and fre many with an explosive “blowup” in early 2017 emergency response evaluated character. In January and February demonstrated the need the wildfre emergency to identify 2017, about 1.2 million acres (0.5 lessons concerning the effectiveness million ha) in Chile were affected by for interoperability of international assistance, wildfres, notably in the regions of between neighboring including the use of aerial assets in O’Higgins, Maule, and Biobío (GFMC frefghting. Discussions between the 2017). In addition to 0.7 million nations for wildfre crisis Chilean Forest Service (Corporacin acres (280,500 ha) of industrial management. Nacional Forestal, or CONAF), forest plantations and 190,000 acres the National Emergency Offce (77,000 ha) of native forests, more (Ofcina Nacional de Emergencia del than 247,000 acres (100,000 ha) Ministerio del Interior, or ONEMI), of agricultural and pasture lands commonly agreed-upon rules and and the Ministry for Foreign as well as bushlands were affected. standards for cross-boundary fre Affairs revealed a desire and need Eleven people were killed and more management was responsible for a to transform the existing informal than 1,600 homes were destroyed. lack of interoperability and swift and cooperation among South American effective action. countries into formalized policy The control of the extremely intense, and agreements. This would include fast-spreading, and severe wildfres The wildfre emergency in early the development of guidelines, exceeded the capacities of the 2017 demonstrated the urgent protocols, and agreements to Chilean authorities and the private need for taking the next steps to regulate and ensure effective sector. Numerous countries around create interoperability between preparedness and interoperability in the world deployed assistance, neighboring nations for wildfre bilateral and multilateral ground and including 5 airplanes and more than crisis management. Common aerial fre response operations. 600 frefghters. The effectiveness standards for training and of foreign assistance, however, was frefghting operations are essential Consequently, a Second Regional rather limited due to delays in arrival for preparing a safe, effective, Symposium and Consultation on and lack of preparedness (fg.1). and effcient cooperative wildfre Regional Cooperation in Cross- It became obvious that a lack of response (fgs. 2–4). Boundary Fire Management in

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 41 Figure 3—Mobile and stationary incident command posts operated by the Chilean Forest Service (CONAF). Photos: Corporacin Nacional Forestal (CONAF 2017).

South America was hosted by management. In addition, CONAF Integrated Fire Management Chile in Via del Mar on October and GFMC signed a Memorandum addresses the causative agents that 3–4, 2017, sponsored by the of Understanding on Cooperation in determine the fammability and German Federal Ministry for Fire Management within the Global susceptibility of landscapes as well Food and Agriculture and GFMC. Wildland Fire Network (fg. 6). as the vulnerability of society living The consultation was attended therein. One of the South American by fre management agencies Integrated Fire landscapes in which Integrated from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Management Across Fire Management has been applied Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, successfully is the Brazilian Cerrado. Uruguay, and Venezuela (fg. 5). The Landscapes concluding declaration—a detailed Since its establishment in 2004, the The Brazilian Cerrado is considered 18-page document (see the sidebar Regional South America Wildland to be the most species-rich savanna on pages 43-44)—was an agreement Fire Network has focused on the region in the world, containing on a set of recommendations aimed scientifc and technical exchange approximately 5 percent of the at developing formal regional of experiences and solutions for global biodiversity. Biodiversity in agreements and procedures for strengthening capabilities in the region has great socioeconomic cross-boundary cooperation in fre Integrated Fire Management. importance for local populations, including many indigenous and traditional populations (Coutinho 1990). The Cerrado covers more than 500 million acres (200 million ha). With the advancement of the agricultural frontier, the native vegetation cover of the Cerrado has been diminished by half of its original size. Moreover, the recurrent annual late-season wildfres have severe consequences, such as loss of biodiversity, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and Figure 4—A B–747 Global SuperTanker (United States) and an Ilyushin 76 (Russian health problems caused by the Federation) operating jointly in Chile, an unprecedented picture of global cooperation in wildfre emergency support. The ad hoc deployment of foreign air tankers raised many increased amount of smoke. In 2012, questions about the effectiveness and effciency of their use without having agreed-upon around 60 percent of the emissions protocols and common rules/procedures in place before the onset of an emergency. of carbon dioxide in Brazil from land Photo: Corporacin Nacional Forestal (CONAF 2017). Fire Management Today 42 Declaration of Via del Mar on Cross-Boundary Cooperation in Fire Management in South America, 2017

Figure 5—The representatives of nine South American countries jointly elaborated the recommendations for formalizing and strengthening the effectiveness and effciency of cross-boundary cooperation in fre emergency response. Photo: Corporacin Nacional Forestal (CONAF 2017).

The Second Regional Symposium • To recognize the Union of • To use the International Fire and Consultation on Cross- South American Nations (Unin Aviation Guidelines for the Boundary Cooperation in Fire de Naciones Suramericanas, application of procedures and Management in South America, or UNASUR) as the platform operational standard protocols which was held in the city of of cooperation in the region and to develop joint training Via del Mar, Chile, on October responsible for sustaining and to enhance interoperability in 3–4, 2017, was attended by supporting the constitution and preparedness and response for representatives of agencies strengthening the activities of cross-border cooperation during responsible for fre management the network. forest fre emergencies. from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, • To consider the Southern Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Common Market Treaty (Tratado In this spirit, the participants Uruguay, and Venezuela. In Mercado Comn del Sur, or agreed to establish the following the concluding declaration—a MERCOSUR), the Andean Agenda for Regional Cooperation in detailed 18-page document—the Community (Pacto Andino– Fire Management: participants recommended, among Comunidad Andina de Naciones), other things: and the Amazon Cooperation • To prepare in joint form an Treaty Organization as forums for Addendum and a Manual of • To constitute a South American the work of the network. Procedures for International Regional Network for cooperation • To develop and use guidelines and Cross-Border Cooperation for in managing cross-border standard operating procedures Enhancing Preparedness for fres and the management of to improve the interoperability Managing Wildfre Emergencies wildfre emergencies, with the of countries cooperating in in the Region, to be presented participation of public and private cross-border fre management, on the part of the chancelleries entities from Argentina, Bolivia, especially to improve the of the countries of the region Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, effectiveness and effciency of to UNASUR for approval and Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, cooperation and mutual assistance endorsement. Uruguay, and Venezuela, with in wildfre emergencies, based • To create the Regional Fire focal points offcially nominated in on the documents reviewed by Management Resource Center– every country. the symposium. South American Region based on

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 43 a “decentralized” model of two • To accept that the Corporacin with special emphasis on technical specialized institutions that will Nacional Forestal of Chile assistance and improving the cooperate and interact jointly: assumes the function of response to wildfre emergencies 1. An institution specializing secretariat for facilitating the by enhancing interoperability and in research, education, process of implementing effectiveness in fre management. and capacity building in the recommendations of the • To advance systematically the fundamental fre science Second Regional Symposium adoption and application of the and fre management, with a and Consultation. Incident Command System as head offce in the Center of • To promote the development and a common approach in South Environmental Monitoring implementation of protocols, America for the control and and Fire Management (Centro procedures, and memorandums coordination of the response de Monitoramento Ambiental of understandings or agreements to bilateral or multilateral e Manejo do Fogo) in Gurupí, between countries of the region wildfre emergencies. Tocantins, Brazil. The center for integrated fre management, will serve as the scientifc branch (for fre ecology and fre management research) and as the educational branch of the regional center, including academic education and training in fre management. 2. An institution dedicated to and specializing in the control of wildfres and in emergency management, with a head offce at the Corporacin Nacional Forestal, Chile. The institution will constitute the operational entity of the regional center, focusing on cross-border cooperation in Figure 6—Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Fire fre management, training, Management within the Global Wildland Fire Network between the Chilean Forest Service prevention, and combat of forest (Executive Director Aaron Cavieres, right) and the Global Fire Monitoring Center (Director fres in South America. Johann Georg Goldammer, left). Photo: Corporacin Nacional Forestal (CONAF 2017).

use, land use change, and forestry season, the fres are burning at the framework of Germany’s were generated in the Cerrado. low intensity, reducing fuel loads International Climate Initiative in Extensive wildfres also recur in the that otherwise could lead to high- achieving the objective of applying protected areas of the biome (which intensity and high-severity fres Integrated Fire Management in comprise approximately 8 percent of in the late dry season (fg. 7). the Cerrado. The activities were the Cerrado), representing serious These practices contribute to the developed based on Brazil’s National threats to the fora and fauna and preservation of the biome’s functions Action Plan on Climate Change and generating considerable greenhouse as a global carbon sink. its Action Plan for the Prevention gas emissions. and Control of Deforestation and A Pioneering Project for Wildfres in the Cerrado. The The application of Integrated Fire South America executing partners were the Brazilian Management in the Cerrado is based authorities for nature conservation on the ecological adaptation of Between 2012 and the end and environment on the federal level, this ecosystem to fre and involves of 2017, the Government of supported on the regional level in targeted burning in the early dry Germany supported the Brazilian Tocantins by the National Institute of season. At this stage of the fre Ministry of Environment through Space Research, among others.

Fire Management Today 44 The cooperation focused on several key areas, including capacity development for planning and implementing prescribed burning, utilization of modern geoprocessing technologies, and operational training in fre management. Planning tools and environmental education principles were introduced showing alternatives to the use of fre in agriculture as well as ways of decentralizing the authority to conduct controlled burning in agriculture.

Participatory management processes for protected areas through agreements with local communities Figure 7—Application of early-season prescribed fre in the Cerrado contributes to reducing the occurrence and severity of late dry-season fres. Photo: Instituto Brasileiro were applied to improve the do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis. controlled use of fre and the sustainable use of natural resources. In addition, research studies were and implementation of prescribed carried out on the impacts of Participatory burning and management strategies wildfres on biodiversity and climate. for preventing and combating Furthermore, methodologies based management and the wildfres. The results of the project, on remote sensing for monitoring application of Integrated that is, the approaches, tools, and burned areas and deforestation lessons learned from implementing were developed to provide updated Fire Management in Integrated Fire Management in information for prevention and protected areas have Brazil, are available on the web suppression of wildfres and to (MMA 2017). estimate greenhouse gas emissions. contributed to reducing conficts. Capacity Building for the In order to scale up Integrated Fire Next Generation Management, the corresponding One of the fve objectives of the instruments and approaches were fre regimes are created, favoring the Second Regional Symposium and and continue to be systematized survival of biological diversity in this Consultation was to discuss the and disseminated. The goal is to unique landscape. establishment “of a Regional Fire promote public policies that lead to Management Resource Center the institutionalization of Integrated Participatory management and with two main proposed branches Fire Management in Brazil. the application of Integrated to foster regional capacities in (a) Fire Management principles in vegetation fre science, education The 6 years of cooperation have protected areas have contributed and training, and (b) operational resulted in a substantial paradigm to reducing conficts and striking coordination of cross-boundary fre shift. The zero-burning policy has a balance between conservation management.” Following the models been replaced by the use of fre as goals and the use of natural of the regional centers that have a management tool to reduce fuel resources by local communities. been established by the GFMC in loads and the severity of late dry- These approaches are supported by Southeast Europe/South Caucasus season wildfres (fgs. 8–9), which an operational automated burned- (Skopje, Macedonia), Eastern Europe can affect and damage large areas. area mapping system. Combined (Kiev, Ukraine), Central Asia (Ulan This contributes to the conservation with information on the fuel loads Bator, Mongolia), South East Asia of biodiversity and climate. For available for burning, the system (Bogor, Indonesia), and Central instance, habitat structures with contributes to improved planning Eurasia (Krasnoyarsk, Russia), the mosaic characteristics of different Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 45 proposed Regional Fire Management Resource Center for South America will have a focus on research, education, and capacity building in the fundamentals of fre science and fre management.

In 2016, the Center for Environmental Monitoring and Fire Management (Centro de Monitoramento Ambiental e Manejo do Fogo) was inaugurated in Gurupí, Tocantins, Brazil. Gurupí will serve as the scientifc and educational branch of the proposed Regional Fire Management Resource Center under the GFMC, including academic Figure 8—Local farmers receive assistance from specialized Integrated Fire Management education and fre management teams to conduct safe and environmentally benefcial prescribed fres for managing training (CEMAF 2017). Integrated agricultural subsistence farming in the Cerrado. Photo: Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis. Fire Management capacity building will be the focus of its role, including the provision of science-based advisory services for sustainable fre management and development of relevant policies.

The center will focus its work on the science-policy-practitioners interface and promote the dialogue between the science community and specialized governmental institutions and civil society organizations. The development of an internet-based information portal will facilitate the application of scientifc principles in Integrated Fire Management training and education at the academic level and training of local communities in fre management.

The Way Ahead In January 2018, CONAF established a secretariat and a task force entrusted with following up on the implementation of the Declaration of Via del Mar and focusing on raising resources for the establishment of an operations center for the Regional Figure 9—Between 2012 and 2017, a number of hands-on expeditions and prescribed Fire Management Resource Center, burning operations have contributed to exchanging international experiences and with its decentralized branches in spreading expertise in fre management to local actors. Photos: Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis. Chile and Brazil.

Fire Management Today 46 The future of success in enhancing Coming up: national and regional capabilities in fre management in South America The 7th International Wildland Fire will include and be built on the success of those processes and Conference • Brazil—May 2019 projects that have been initiated and conducted over the last 4 decades. At Since 2007, Brazil, through the National Center for Prevention and the same time, the South American Combat of Forest Fires (PREVFOGO), a specialized center within the countries will demonstrate their structure of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable intent to actively participate in Natural Resources (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos and contribute to shaping the Recursos Naturais Renováveis, or IBAMA), has partnered with the development of a cohesive global fre Chilean Forest Service (Corporacin Nacional Forestal, or CONAF) as management strategy. This is why coordinator of the Regional South America Wildland Fire Network. the 7th International Wildland Fire Within the framework of the agency networking activities, Brazil Conference will be held in Brazil has promoted and implemented cooperation programs, projects, in 2019, with the international and activities at national and international levels. Building on community invited to attend (see these achievements, Brazil expressed its interest in hosting the 7th the sidebar). International Wildland Fire Conference (IWFC) in 2019. The offcial announcement of the 7th IWFC in Brazil was made at the 6th IWFC In conclusion, it can be stated in South Korea in 2015. that South American countries have taken decisive steps towards The main aim of the conferences is to bring together both the addressing the escalating problems technical members of the fre community and the authorities arising from excessive fre use and concerned with policy and national practices in wildland fre the increasing occurrence of severe management to realize their common interests in wildland fre risk wildfres. However, we are not yet management and disaster reduction at local, national, regional, and where we want to be. Many of the global scales. The series of International Wildland Fire Conferences challenges ahead are related to rapid was initiated in Boston (United States) in 1989, followed by Vancouver demographic and land use changes. (Canada) in 1997, Sydney (Australia) in 2003, Sevilla (Spain) in 2007, Climate change will become a main Sun City/Pilanesberg (South Africa) in 2011, and Pyeongchang (South driver of transformation in South Korea) in 2015. After being held on most other continents, the IWFC America’s landscape-scale fre regimes, will be held for the frst time in South America in Campo Grande, with some uncertainties ahead. Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, from May 6 to May 10, 2019. Online information will be available soon—or contact wildfre2019br@gmail. Solutions for fre management com. will beneft from regional and international cooperation. South America will play its role and contribute to developing a cohesive intro/about4_2017.html#October. (20 Wildland Fire Network. http://gfmc. global fre management strategy. But December 2017). online/globalnetworks/southamerica/ Coutinho, L.M. 1990. Fire in the SouthAmerica.html. (18 December 2017). the region certainly needs support ecology of the Brazilian Cerrado. IFAWG (International Fire Aviation Working from the international community In: Goldammer, J.G., ed. Fire in the Group). 2017. IFAWG: guidelines. to address the manifold challenges. tropical biota: ecosystem processes and http://www.ifawg.org/information/. (18 global challenges. New York: Columbia December 2017). University Press: 82–105. IWPM (International Wildfre Preparedness Literature Cited GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center). Mechanism). 2017. International Wildfre CEMAF (Centro de Monitoramento 2006. EuroFire. http://www.euro-fre.eu/. Preparedness Mechanism (IWPM) – Ambiental e Manejo do Fogo). 2017. (18 December 2017). portal. http://gfmc.online/iwpm/index-7. http://www.cemaf.org/. (20 December GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring html. (18 December 2017). 2017). Center). 2017.Wildfres in Chile MMA (Ministerio do Meio Ambiente). CONAF (Corporacin Nacional Forestal). and Argentina. http://gfmc.online/ 2017. Projeto Cerrado-Jalapão. http:// 2017. Via del Mar Declaration on GFMCnew/2017/01/20170125_cl.html. cerradojalapao.mma.gov.br/. [Date Cross-boundary Cooperation in Fire (18 December 2017). accessed unknown]. Management. http://gfmc.online/ GWFN (Global Wildland Fire Network). ■ 2017. Regional South America

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 47 CHALLENGES IN MANAGING LANDSCAPE FIRES IN EASTERN EUROPE

Sergiy Zibtsev and Johann Georg Goldammer

his report from Eastern collateral damages caused by the landscape-scale ecological function Europe provides insight into armed confict in the southeastern by preventing desertifcation and T the multifaceted problem Ukraine region creates additional, sandstorms in the region. of managing fre in the landscapes nonstandard risks for frefghters. of Ukraine, a country that is The economic crisis in the country experiencing dramatic changes in Eastern Europe is experiencing the and the Government cut of fnancial its environment and society. Many consequences of climate change, support for forestry since January of the problems highlighted in this which already have led to more 2014, as well as the process of paper exemplify the problems that frequent dry spells and heat waves reformation of forestry in Ukraine, are common in the countries of the and the extension of fre seasons. have resulted in a sharp reduction region from the shores of the Eastern For instance, in the southern part of budgets for fre management Baltic Sea down to the Black Sea, of the country, Ukraine is facing activities, which state forest including the cultural and natural challenging fre weather conditions enterprises used to generate from landscapes of the Baltic States, year round, with an increased risk of their timber sales. As a consequence eastern Germany, Belarus, Poland, and Moldova.

Regional Context Eastern Europe is experiencing the consequences Climate change, land use change, of climate change, which already have led to and the deterioration of the more frequent dry spells and heat waves and the socioeconomic and political situation are main drivers of the worsening extension of fre seasons. wildfre situation in Ukraine. Most importantly, the country faces the challenge of dealing with fres uncontrollable large fres. Massive of reduced state budgets, from 50 to burning in extended areas of forests dieback of Scotch pine (Pinus 70 percent of the fre management and other vegetation types that sylvestris) has occurred all over the staff (forest fre station employees, were contaminated by radionuclides Polessie region (the north of Ukraine frefghters, and fre observers) after the failure of the Chernobyl from Chernihiv oblast to Volyn).* had to be released in the southern Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. The Here, a ban of sanitary cutting has region of Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk, legacy of unexploded ordnance and resulted in a dramatic increase Donetsk, Kherson, Kirovograd, of fuel loads within forests. It is Lugansk, Odessa, Mykolaiv, and estimated that the combined impacts Zaporizhska oblasts). The forest of climate change, wildfres, and enterprises in this steppe zone Sergiy Zibtsev is a professor at the Institute of Forestry and Landscape Park illegal logging have resulted in a loss could not compensate for the Management, National University of Life up to 2 million acres (0.8 million reduced budgets because they do and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, ha) of protected forests and forest not generate income from timber and head of the Regional Eastern Europe belts (windbreak systems) in the sales due to the low quality and Fire Monitoring Center in Kiev, Ukraine. Johann Georg Goldammer is a fre ecologist southern part of the country. This and director of the Global Fire Monitoring includes the loss of a substantial part Center, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry of the Oleshki pine forest in Kherson * “Oblast” is the Ukrainian and Russian and Freiburg University, Freiburg, oblast, which has an important term for region, more or less equivalent to Germany. a State.

Fire Management Today 48 Figure 1—Number (line) and area of forest fres in Ukraine, 1990–2015. Source: Soshenskyi and others, in press.

productivity of forests. Thus, these the 1980s, between 2,000 and 3,000 relatively well regulated. More than rapid changes in environmental, wildfres were recorded annually; the 300 state forest enterprises rely on social, and economic conditions last decade experienced an increase, 270 forest fre stations distributed require urgent attention and analysis with about 7,000 fres on average throughout Ukraine. Fire brigades that could be used for development per year. Figure 1 shows the wildfre in the stations are responsible for of a national fre management policy. statistics for the period from 1990 to fre prevention and initial attack 2015. During this period, the average in the state enterprises. Wide Forest Fires in Ukraine size of forest fres increased from 0.3 implementation of video surveillance ha in 1990 to 2.6 ha in 2015. for fre detection has signifcantly The total area of forests in Ukraine is reduced the time of response and about 23.7 million acres (9.6 million It is highly probable that the actual contributed to improved and more ha), covering less than 17 percent areas of burned forests are even effective initial attack. of the total land area. The share higher since the national system of coniferous forests is about 42 of fre statistics mainly includes However, pressing problems in percent (that is, around 10 million fres reported in forests under the country include outdated acres (4 million ha)), of which about management by the State Agency of fre engines, often more than 30 33 percent comprises Scotch pine Forest Resources of Ukraine. Fires years old, and a generally low forests. Most forest fres in Ukraine that occurred in forests under the level of forest frefghter training. occur in the pine forests in the north jurisdiction of other agencies (27 The paramount challenge for fre of the country (in Polissia) and in the percent of the total forest area) often suppression is the lack of trained central and southern regions, where were not registered and reported. incident commanders who are able forest belts are stocking alluvial to manage the complex and large sands along the main rivers (Dnipro, Despite the reduced fre management fre incidents that have increasingly Dnister, Yuzgnii Bug, Desna, and budgets in Ukraine, forests still are occurred in recent years. Siverskii Donets). better protected from wildfres than are agricultural and other lands, The annual number of forest fres Agricultural Burning including protected territories. Apart and area burned have been increasing Signifcant land use changes have from the current diffcult economic rapidly during the last 25 years. In occurred in Ukraine in recent situation, forest fre management is Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 49 decades. From a total of 149.25 Most farmers burn agriculture residues million acres (60.4 million ha) of Ukrainian lands that were state owned instead of plowing or using no-till conservation in 1991, up to 77.6 million acres agricultural methods. (31.4 million ha) became private lands and 190,000 acres (77,000 ha) were transferred to collective and communal ownership by 2014. summer, resulting in considerable Within the framework of cooperation The drastic changes in land use and environmental pollution and also between the Regional Eastern ownership were not accompanied by becoming the major cause of Europe Fire Monitoring Center and new institutional systems that would wildfres spreading to forests and the Global Fire Monitoring Center support the new landowners through protected areas. (sponsored by the research and appropriate extension services and development portfolio of the Council subsidies. Small landowners are not One of the regional problems of Europe in the implementation in a position to protect their lands associated with agricultural of the European Major Hazards from fres due to lack of resources burning is the emission of so-called Agreement), the spatial and temporal and training. black carbon, also called elemental patterns of open burning in Ukraine carbon or soot. With the prevailing were studied for the time period Most importantly, however, the southerly winds during the burning 2010–16 (Zibtsev and others 2017). majority of farmers burn agriculture seasons, the black carbon particles The analysis of satellite data (MODIS residues instead of plowing are transported to the Arctic sensor) showed that during the or using no-till conservation environment. The black carbon investigation period, an average of agricultural methods. As a result, deposits reduce the albedo and about 6,500 instances of large-scale fres on agricultural and other accelerate the melting of ice and agricultural burning were recorded lands in Ukraine have become a snow (Zibtsev and others 2017). annually, with an apex in 2014 and regular practice in spring and late 2015, when more than 8,000 and

Figure 2—Distribution of open burning activities (red dots) on the territory of Ukraine in 2015. Source: Zibtsev and others (2017).

Fire Management Today 50 on July 31, 2010, resulted in the prevention and swift initial control of agricultural burning, thus reducing the amount of wildfres signifcantly.

Overall, it must be stated that wildfre threats for rural populations, their assets, and the regional environment increased during the last decade. The amount of rural houses lost to wildfres has increased. Fires affecting protected areas, fre-sensitive landscape types, food plains, and swamps are negatively affecting the functioning and biodiversity of these ecosystems.

Fire Management on Figure 3—Locations of the forest ranger district offces in the different contamination areas within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Each district offce has a forest fre station. Terrain Contaminated by Scale of map: 1:442,000. Source: Zibtsev and others (2015b). Radioactivity Ukraine and Belarus are the 9,000 fres occurred, respectively. 2010 to a high of 13 million acres two countries with the largest Agricultural burning is practiced (5.27 million ha) of agricultural terrains that were contaminated by primarily in spring (March–April) lands burned in 2014 (fg. 2). It radionuclides after the failure of the and after the summer harvest (July– needs to be pointed out that extreme Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in August), mainly in the south of drought affected Eastern Europe 1986 (Zibtsev and others 2011). In Ukraine (fg. 2). during the summer of 2010. While Ukraine alone, over 2.4 million acres the drought created a problematic (1 million ha) of pine and softwood The total annual area of open situation in the European part of forests in Chernihiv, Kiev, Zhytomyr, burning in Ukraine during the study Russia, the situation was different in Rivne, and Volyn oblasts were period varied from a low of 3.16 Ukraine. The implementation of an contaminated in the Polissia region million acres (1.28 million ha) in order of the Government of Ukraine along the border with Belarus.

Figure 4—Left: example of a 35-year-old jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) stand in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Korogod Forest Ranger District). Right: a 40-year-old Scotch Pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) plantation, also in the zone. Both stands were classifed as in fre hazard class I. Photos: Sergiy Zibtsev (August 2014).

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 51 Since 2014, armed confict has resulted in signifcant collateral damage to the natural and cultural landscapes of eastern Ukraine.

Six main types of radionuclides have contaminated the soils and fuels in the environment around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant: Cesium (137Cs), strontium (90Sr), plutonium (238Pu, 239-240Pu, and Figure 5—Spatial distribution of wildfres in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone from 1993 to 241Pu), and americium (241Am). With 2017, including two large wildfres. The one on the right was in April 2015 (22,800 acres (9,241 ha)), and the on the left was in August 2015 (14,000 acres (5,698 ha)). Source: half-life periods of up to 24,065 Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center. years, these radionuclides release all types of radiation—alpha, beta, and gamma. They are found in all Consequently, a special system of Firefghting in such a fuel types in contaminated forests, limited forest management was put contaminated terrain is extremely mostly in forest litter, the duff/ in place right after the accident problematic because personnel humus layer, mosses, mushrooms, based on the level of contamination are subject to the risk of inhaling and the understory vegetation. of the soil and vegetation and the additional doses of radionuclides In grass fres and surface forest potential doses of radioactivity due to the radioactive particles in fres, most of the radionuclides to which forestry personnel and the smoke and dust released during stay within the inhalation zone of population would be exposed. frefghting. frefghters and are transported by wind and deposited within kilometers around the fre. During large high-intensity fres, vertical convection columns may lift the radionuclides into the higher altitude atmosphere (3 or more miles (5+ km)) and are subjected to long-range transport at regional and even global levels.

After the failure of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April 1986, all forest and fre management activities were stopped in the most contaminated terrain, which was designated as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ). Only personnel engaged in the Figure 6—Wildfre (red and black/gray, center left) burning in the Red Forest area, construction of the frst concrete- which has the highest level of radiation in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The fre was built sarcophagus were allowed to 1.9 miles (3 km) west of the failed Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (the bright area in the upper center right of the satellite imagery shows the newly stay. After several large wildfres constructed sarcophagus, which is covering the destroyed Reactor No. 4). The total area occurred in the CEZ in 1992, burned was 600 acres (250 ha). Source: Copernicus Sentinel, 17 July 2016. a special forest management Fire Management Today 52 enterprise was reinstalled, with 400 forestry and fre personnel tasked to prevent and fght fres (fg. 3). Although the region enjoyed a period of fre exclusion, major wildfres occurred in 1996, 2003, and 2007. During this period, ecosystems in the CEZ became more and more fre prone due to increasing fuel loads in unmanaged forests and grasslands. The level of the fre hazard on forest lands in the CEZ has been classifed, with radioactive contamination taken into account. In particular, the highest hazard class (hazard class I) includes all conifer forests less than 40 years old, all conifers on dry and sandy soils, sites affected previously by fres, clearcuts, grasslands, and all sites with contamination levels higher than 55,500 Bq m-2 (fg. 4). The forest fre brigades in the CEZ are very good in responding to small wildfres burning under moderate weather conditions. Each of the six forest fre stations in the CEZ has two to four fre engines and between three and fve frefghters; each is responsible for initial suppression on areas up to 99,000 acres (40,000 ha). Figure 7—Uncontrolled burning of the steppe (top) and postfre dieback of a pine stand The intensity and size of wildfres that in the Cretaceous Flora Reserve (bottom). Photos: Sergey Limanskij. affected the CEZ from 2015 to 2017 are due to growing fuel loads and fre steppe ecosystems are productive Khomutovskaya Steppe Nature hazards, mitigated by effective early agricultural lands. Reserve, Ukrainian Steppe Nature response (fgs. 5 and 6). However, the Reserve, and Meotida National Park. management of large fres in 2015–17 The main types of forest include revealed weaknesses in preparedness mixed oak–maple–ash forests on Since 2014, armed confict has for and response to large/high- rich but eroded black soils, extended resulted in signifcant collateral complexity fres. pine forests growing on sandy soils damage to the natural and cultural along the river Siversky Donets, and landscapes of eastern Ukraine. Wildfres and Armed forests on river delta governed by Wildfres also damaged the industrial Conficts poplars, willows, and hardwoods. and social infrastructure and thus The total area of forests in Donetsk contributed to the worsening Apart from the problems associated and Lugansk oblasts is 786,780 acres economic situation and security with the nuclear accident of 1986, (318,400 ha). More than 80 percent in the region. Apart from damages Ukraine is currently confronted of the forested area is planted forest to agricultural lands and burned with the consequences of the stands, which are protected and forests, some settlements and critical armed confict in Donbas. Donbas managed to perform exclusively infrastructure (the electricity grid) is an old cultural landscape that environmental and recreational have been destroyed by confict- has been subject to intensive functions. In addition, there are related wildfres. Additional factors land use for centuries. The fertile special protected territories in the contributing to the situation included black soils of the former natural region: the Lugansk Nature Reserve, the cessation of regular activities to Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 53 fghting were halted due to the risk to the lives and safety of forest fre personnel, both from direct attack and from unexploded ordnance. Exploding land mines were the main cause of wildfres in Scotch pine stands in Donbas. Fire suppression operations were not carried out in zones at risk from shelling. In most cases, wildfres continued to burn until they were halted by natural breaks.

According to the Luhansk Forest Amelioration Station (Zyatkov 2018), fres in the confict zones have already destroyed at least 49,400 acres (20,000 ha) of pine forests, equivalent to about 22 percent of all pine forests in the region. A total of 4,867 wildfres were recorded in the confict zone by satellite sensors during military operations. Seasonal dynamics of fres correlate well with combat operations, in particular near Ilovaisk city in August 2014 (fg. 8).

Protection of forests from fres in a 9-mile (15-km) zone along the line of contact between the sides stopped shortly after the outbreak of the confict. The reason was a number of fatalities and injuries of fre management personnel on fre towers caused by snipers and the effects of exploding ordnance on Figure 8—The locations of wildfres, protected areas, and forests in the confict zone ground frefghters. Furthermore, in eastern Ukraine. (The ATO region is contested, as are areas throughout the confict several fre engines belonging to the zone.) Source: Zibtsev and others (2015a). forest fre stations were seized by the other side. Often, the military did not allow fretrucks to respond maintain residential and industrial Reserve, Preserve “Stone Graves,” to fres. Since the region is highly infrastructure and the protection National Park Svyatiye Gory, fre prone, the halting of fre of ecosystems, continuing military Natural Reserves Donetsk Ridge, management activities has led to a operations, and the resettlement of Zuevsky, and Kleban-Bik (fg. 7). signifcant increase in the number, more than 1.5 million citizens from Military operations have even led area, and intensity of fres. the region (Zibtsev and others 2015a). to signifcant changes in protected areas remote from the confict Apart from the direct impacts of Some protected areas bordering zone, such as the Kremen forests, fres, the collateral damage caused on confict territory have been Kramatorskiy Preserve, and others. by the armed confict has included severely affected by the armed signifcant damage to forests. confict: the Trekhizbenskaya Fire management activities in Exploding ordnance has caused Steppe Reserve, Pridontsovskaya the regions with active military widespread damage to the roots, bark, Delta Reserve, Cretaceous Flora Fire Management Today 54 Figure 9—Contamination of forest litter by unexploded ordnance (left), along with a shell crater (center) and a booby trap (right), exemplifes the threats and damage caused by the armed confict in the Donbas region. Photos: Sergey Limanskij. and crowns of trees, resulting in the organization of the frst conference Council of Europe, through its weakening and increased mortality on Reducing Risk of Disaster European Major Hazards Agreement, of trees and the formation of gaps in from Catastrophic Wildfres in the and the GFMC provided fnancial the forest canopy and root sponge. Chernobyl Irradiated Forests, held and technical support to the The contamination by unexploded in Kiev, Ukraine. The conference National University of Life and ordnance of signifcant areas was followed by an event called Environmental Sciences of Ukraine constitutes a high threat to the local Advanced Seminar—Wildfres and to set up the Regional Eastern population (fg. 9), which continues Human Security: Fire Management Europe Fire Monitoring Center to visit the forests in order to harvest on Terrain Contaminated by (REEFMC). Since its establishment traditional products—mushrooms, Radioactivity, Unexploded Ordnance in 2013, the REEFMC has been berries, and medicinal herbs. (UXO) and Land Mines, held in Kiev supported by and has cooperated and Chernobyl in 2009. with a number of academic and Sharing Fire Management specialized institutions. Apart from Solutions Through Following the recommendations the continuing cooperation with of experts in these meetings, the and support of the GFMC and the International Cooperation In order to beneft from international expertise in fre European countries are actively exchanging management in dangerous terrains, the National University of Life expertise in fre management. and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine contacted the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) in 2006. At that time, the GFMC was entrusted by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with assisting countries in Southeast and Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus in developing fre management concepts in regions affected by armed conficts, especially in terrains contaminated by unexploded ordnance and other contaminants (Goldammer 2013a).

Figure 10—Sand table exercise for Chernobyl frefghters, conducted jointly by fre In 2007, the Council of Europe specialists from the U.S. Forest Service and the Ukrainian fre response teams. Photo: and the OSCE supported the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center.

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 55 Most important is the creation of interoperability with the aim of determining urgent mid- to long-term actions/needs for between countries that share common problems reducing the risk of catastrophic, along their national boundaries. uncontrollable fres in the CEZ and increasing the safety of frefghters engaged in suppression. A total of 431 Ukrainian specialists in fre Global Institute of Sustainable the U.S. Department of Agriculture management in the CEZ participated Forestry at Yale University, the Forest Service and the U.S. in the project meetings and training REEFMC is currently working with Department of State, with the sessions during the past 16 months the Global Environment Facility support of the U.S. Embassy in of project activity (fg. 10). and United Nations Environment Ukraine, was initiated in 2016. The Programme within the framework of project, operational from 2016 to At the policy level, Ukraine is the project Conserving, Enhancing 2018 and built on previous activities supported by the Council of Europe and Managing Carbon Stocks and since 2005, aimed to increase through the European Major Biodiversity in the Chernobyl the capacity and safety of fre Hazards Agreement—the so-called Exclusion Zone and the OSCE management in the CEZ. It included European Open Partial Agreement project Improving Radiological facilitating an interagency dialogue and Environmental Awareness in Territories Affected by the Chernobyl Accident in Belarus and Ukraine, with a focus on wildfre management. The OSCE project provided a set of guidelines and best practices for fre management in contaminated terrain, which was applied in May 2018 in the frst bilateral exercise on cross-boundary cooperation in wildfre emergency response between Ukraine and Belarus (Goldammer and others 2014, 2016a).

After several large wildfres in the CEZ in 2015, a project funded by

Figure 11—The frst joint tabletop exercise by Ukrainian and Belarussian agencies responsible for fre management and emergency situations was conducted in Gomel, Belarus, under the auspices and sponsorship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Incident commanders from Belarus (left) and Ukraine (right) were supported by a team of moderators (middle, blue vests), administrators (red), and observers/rapporteurs (yellow). Photos: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Evgeniy Maloletka. Fire Management Today 56 Figure 12—Prescribed fres and wildfres in Brandenburg State (Germany) on terrain contaminated by unexploded ordnance are safely controlled by armored frefghting engines. The SPOT–55 is a converted former T–55 combat tank with high-pressure frefghting equipment and a volume of 11 tons of water or other fre suppressants. Photos: Global Fire Monitoring Center.

(EUR-OPA), to which Ukraine is a October 2017, include a statement zones of Western-Central and party—and the GFMC, a mandated on the need for developing legal and Northern Europe prioritize a fre specialized center and coordinator of administrative regulations as well prevention agenda and the use of the Eurasian Team of Specialists on as law enforcement to address the prescribed fre for wildfre hazard Landscape Fire Management serving complex problems of fre use and reduction and conservation. These the implementation of EUR-OPA. In wildfres in the natural, cultural, and themes, based on several years of light of the still unresolved problems industrial landscapes of Ukraine. cooperation among the GFMC, of fre management in areas affected Ukraine, and Poland, were presented by radioactivity, agricultural Regional Exchange I: at the Regional Consultation on burning, and climate change, the Fire Management in Cross-boundary Cooperation in REEFMC and GFMC convened Fire Management, which was held the frst National Round Table on Contaminated Terrain in tandem with Ukraine’s National Fire Management under the title European countries are actively Round Table in October 2017. Fires in the Natural and Cultural exchanging expertise in fre Landscapes of Ukraine: Towards management. While the Euro- Most important is the creation of the Development of a National Fire Mediterranean countries have a interoperability between countries Management Policy. The outcomes strong focus on wildfre suppression, that share common problems along of the roundtable, held in Kiev in the countries of the temperate their national boundaries, such

Figure 13—A former BMP OTR–5 command tank is used for safe ignition of prescribed fres on terrain contaminated by unexploded ordnance. The ignition devices include a Pyroshot Green Dragon and a driptorch from an all-terrain vehicle. Photos: Global Fire Monitoring Center. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 57 Figure 14—Fire triggers explosions of munitions mainly during the summer months, after metal containers of unexploded ordnance are preheated by high temperatures and solar radiation. During burns in winter, the most suitable time of the year from the perspective of conservation and freline safety, the munitions are cold or frozen due to ambient temperatures and are exposed to view without exploding. Photos: Global Fire Monitoring Center. as the radioactively contaminated Some of the technologies and chemical residues, or deposits of terrain on the territories of Ukraine methods that are applied in asbestos. and Belarus. On May 17–18, 2018, Germany include the use of the OSCE, together with the armored vehicles for setting Regional Exchange II: Use of REEFMC and GFMC, conducted prescribed fres and for safe Fire in Wildfre Prevention a tabletop exercise with agencies wildfre suppression on terrain responsible for fre management in with unexploded ordnance. The and Suppression the contaminated border regions ordnance, which stems from In Ukraine—as in other Eastern of the two countries. The main aim military action during World War II European countries—the objectives was to defne capabilities and gaps of and from former military shooting and experiences in the use of interoperability in fre management ranges, is putting frefghters at prescribed fre for wildfre hazard cooperation across borders. The extreme risk (Goldammer and reduction and wildfre suppression exercise resulted in valuable insights others 2016b) (fgs. 12–14). Apart were largely unknown. Starting and conclusions for effective and from the use of unmanned aerial in 2014, the REEFMC and GFMC safe cooperation in addressing the systems, these techniques offer safe organized training sessions for nonstandard wildfre threats in the tools for managing fres on terrain practitioners in the use of prescribed future (fg. 11). contaminated by radioactivity, fre for wildfre hazard reduction

Figure 15—Using prescribed fres for wildfre hazard reduction in pine plantations (left) and in suppression fring (backfring, right) under the guidance of the Global Fire Monitoring Center on open grasslands in the Boyarska Forest Experimental Station and Ukrainian Center of Advanced Training of Forestry Professionals within the framework of the 6th International Fire Management Week in Ukraine (2015). Photos: Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center. Fire Management Today 58 Figure 16—Prescribed conservation burn for the maintenance and rehabilitation of Calluna vulgaris heathlands in Zschorno Forest, a former military exercise area in Brandenburg State, eastern Germany. Located near the border with Poland, the area was converted to a nature reserve in 2002. From 2001 to 2015, signifcant advances were made in the practical application of fre as a tool for regenerating species endangered by overaging and ecological succession as a consequence of decreased disturbances such as grazing and mowing and of fres caused by former military activities (Goldammer and others 2016b). Photos: Global Fire Monitoring Center.

inside of pine stands (fg. 15), a of Ukraine, and managed by the in abandonment of traditional land practice that is receiving increasing REEFMC. use methods and, in many areas, interest for application in Eastern a complete abandonment of land Europe and Russia (Goldammer Regional Exchange III: cultivation. With the elimination of 2013b). Use of Prescribed Fire in disturbance by cultivation, including traditional burning practices, some In the training of suppression fring Conservation areas of Europe are converting (the European term for backfring), In Western and Central Europe, the to fallow lands, a process that the EuroFire Competency Standards use of fre in land management is an is associated with ecological are applied in Ukraine (fg. 15) (GFMC established tradition and practice. succession towards brush cover and 2006). This kind of training will The region has witnessed centuries forest and an overall loss of open be the core activity of the Eastern of burning, which has contributed habitats and biodiversity. European Fire Management Training to shaping landscape patterns of and Research Center, which was high ecological and cultural diversity Changing paradigms in ecology established in late 2018 near Kiev at and value, such as heathlands, and nature conservation have led the Boyarska Forest Experimental open grasslands, and meadows. The to reconsideration of fre exclusion Station and Ukrainian Center of rapid socioeconomic changes in policies in certain sectors of land/ Advanced Training of Forestry the past 4 decades and the recently landscape management, nature Professionals, National University increasing trend of rural exodus all conservation, and forestry. In 2008, of Life and Environmental Sciences over Eurasia, however, have resulted the GFMC organized a frst major

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 59 Figure 17—In 2015, the Global Fire Monitoring Center supported the Forest Fire Protection Laboratory, Forest Research Institute of Poland, and the Ministry of Interior of Poland in conducting the country’s frst prescribed burning experiment. This demonstration pilot resulted in a change to Poland’s legal provisions to allow the use of prescribed fre in conservation. The Polish fre team (left) was supported by an unmanned aerial vehicle, which provided real-time imagery on the progress of the fre (right)—a technology that is becoming common for fre monitoring and rescue operations all over Europe (Szczygiel and others 2016). Photos: Forest Research Institute of Poland; Global Fire Monitoring Center. regional conference under the title Final Remarks 2006. EuroFire. http://www.euro-fre.eu/. Symposium on Fire Management (18 December 2017). It is the intent of the authors of Goldammer, J.G., ed. 2009. White paper in Cultural and Natural Landscapes, this report to shed light on the on use of prescribed fre in land Nature Conservation and Forestry ensemble of landscape-scale fre management, nature conservation and in Temperate-Boreal Eurasia. This forestry in temperate-boreal Eurasia. problems in Eastern Europe, which event allowed scientists and fre International Forest Fire News. 38: are globally unprecedented. The managers from Central and Eastern 133–152. example of Ukraine shows that the Goldammer, J.G. 2013a. Beyond climate Europe and from Central Asia to occurrence and consequences of change: wildland fres and human exchange scientifc knowledge and fre use and wildfres in this region security in cultural landscapes in pragmatic management experiences transition—examples from temperate- are affected by the interaction and on the use of prescribed fre in boreal Eurasia. In: Goldammer, J.G., mutual reinforcement of multiple conservation and land management. ed. Vegetation fres and global change: factors: challenges for concerted international Consent was reached to release the action. A White Paper directed to the White Paper on Use of Prescribed • Social and political changes United Nations and International Fire in Land Management, Nature Organizations. Remagen-Oberwinter, affecting land use, Conservation and Forestry in Germany: Kessel Publishing House: • Threats caused by the most serious 285–311. Chapter 22. Temperate-Boreal Eurasia, which nuclear accident in the history of Goldammer, J.G., ed. 2013b. Prescribed challenged the agencies concerned humanity, and burning in Russia and neighbouring to reconsider the prohibition of fre temperate-boreal Eurasia. Remagen- • Collateral damages caused by a use in land management in most of Oberwinter, Germany: Kessel Publishing lasting armed confict and the the European countries (Goldammer House. 326 p. increasing consequences of Goldammer, J.G.; Kashparov, V.; Zibtsev, 2009). Over the last 10 years, the climate change. S.; Robinson, S. 2014. Best practices exchange of expertise between and recommendations for wildfre scientists and fre managers in suppression in contaminated areas, temperate–boreal Eurasia has made References with focus on radioactive terrain. remarkable progress, particularly in Evangeliou, N.; Zibtsev, S.; Myroniuk, V. Commissioned by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. the restoration and maintenance of [and others]. 2016. Resuspension and atmospheric transport of radionuclides Freiburg, Germany; Basel, Switzerland; open-land ecosystems such as the due to wildfres near the Chernobyl Kiev, Ukraine: Global Fire Monitoring high-conservation value Calluna Nuclear Power Plant in 2015: an impact Center, Ukrainian Institute of Agriculture vulgaris heathlands (fgs. 16, 17). assessment. Scientifc Reports. 6: Radiology, National University of 26062–26075. Life and Environmental Sciences of GFMC (Global Fire Monitoring Center). Ukraine, Regional Eastern Europe Fire

Fire Management Today 60 Monitoring Center, and Green Cross heathlands contaminated by unexploded Zone. 5th International Wildland Fire Switzerland. 53 p. http://gfmc.online/ ordnance (UXO): problems and frst Conference, May 9–13, Sun City, South globalnetworks/seeurope/OSCE-GFMC- experiences gained in a research and Africa. Report-Fire-Management-Contaminated- development project in Germany. Zibtsev, S.; Zagorodniuk, I.; Averin, D.; [and Terrain-2014-ENG.pdf (English), http:// Naturschutz und Biologische Vielfalt. others]. 2015a. Environmental threats gfmc.online/globalnetworks/seeurope/ 152: 87–122. DOI: 10.19213/973152. of the confict in the eastern Ukraine. 26 OSCE-GFMC-Report-Fire-Management- Soshenskyi, O.M.; Zibtsev, S.V.; Gumeniyk, p. Unpublished document. On fle with: Contaminated-Terrain-2014-RUS.pdf V.V.; Koren, V.A. [In press]. Occurrence ENVSEC Initiative, OSCE Secretariat, (Russian). (20 January 2018). of forest fres in Ukraine during 1990- Vienna, Austria. Goldammer, J.G.; Gumeniuk, V.; 2016. Scientifc Bulletin of the National Zibtsev, S.; Goldammer, J.G.; Robinson, Kashparov, V. [and others]. 2016a. University of Life and Environmental S.; Borsuk, O. 2015b. Fires in nuclear Ukrainian-Belarusian Guidelines on Sciences of Ukraine. forests: silent threats to the environment Fire Management in Contaminated Szczygiel, R.; Goldammer, J.G.; and human security. Unasylva. Terrain. Vienna, Austria; Kiev, Kwiatkowski, M. [and others]. 2016. 66(243/244): 40–51. Ukraine: Organization for Security and Experimental application of prescribed Zibtsev, S.; Goldammer, J.G.; V. Myroniuk, Cooperation in Europe. 70 p. http://gfmc. fre for the management of Calluna R. [and others]. 2017. Report on online/wp-content/uploads/BEL-RUS- vulgaris heathlands on abandoned assessment of open burning and its Chernobyl-Fire-Management-Guidelines- military terrain in Poland. Naturschutz environmental impact in Ukraine. 12 OSCE-GFMC-2017.pdf (Ukrainian and und Biologische Vielfalt. 152: 123–140. p. Unpublished document. On fle with: Russian). (20 January 2018). DOI: 10.19213/973152. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France. Goldammer, J.G.; Brunn, E.; Hartig, S. Zibtsev, S.; Oliver, C.; Goldammer, J.G. Zyatkov, L. 2016. Personal communication. [and others]. 2016b. Development [and others]. 2011. Wildfres risk Head of Luhansk Forest Amelioration of technologies and methods for the reduction from forests contaminated Station, Luhansk, Ukraine. application of prescribed fre for the by radionuclides: a case study of the ■ management of Calluna vulgaris Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 61 REMOTE SENSING FOR WILDFIRE MONITORING IN SIBERIAN FORESTS*

Evgenii Ponomarev, Oyunsanaa Byambasuren, and Andrey Eritsov

atellite monitoring has documented rising wildfre S activity in central and eastern Siberia. Plans for developing satellite monitoring in the region constitute a promising development for fre management in Russia.

Rising Wildfre Activity An estimated 70 to 90 percent of annual wildfres in Russia occur in Siberia (Ponomarev and Kharuk 2016; Ponomarev and others 2016) (fg. 1). The level of forests burning in the region has increased due to climate, anthropogenic, and technogenic changes. Annually, 30 percent of affected forest areas are accompanied by a high percentage Figure 1—Satellite imagery showing active wildfres in the Evenkiya region of central of forest mortality, with severe fres Siberia on July 18, 2016. Wildfre smoke emissions are colored yellow. Source: Albert replacing tree stands (Krylov and Ludwigs University of Freiburg (2016). others 2014). The average annual area of forest killed by wildfre in

The level of forests burning in Siberia has Evgenii Ponomarev is a senior staff scientist and Remote Group supervisor/ increased due to climate, anthropogenic, and leader for the Regional Eurasia Fire Monitoring Center, Forest Fire Monitoring technogenic changes. Laboratory, V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, SB RAS, Federal Research Center in Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation; Russia includes 3.7 to 7.4 million teragrams per year (Shvidenko and Oyunsanaa Byambasuren is the Director of the Fire Management Resource Center— acres (1.5–3 million ha) in remote others 2011; Zamolodchikov and Central Asia Region, National University parts of central and eastern Siberia others 2011). The number of fres of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and (Bartalev and others 2015). burning in the forest–steppes and Andrey Eritsov is the Deputy Chief of the steppes of southern Siberia is also Aerial Forest Fire Center Avialesookhrana in Pushkino, Russian Federation. A shift of fre regimes in the boreal predicted to increase. zone of Siberia is expected due to * The article is based on a study partly predicted climatic changes. In the Satellite Monitoring funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic second half of this century, carbon Today, more than 50 percent of Research, Government of Krasnoyarsk emissions from wildfres in Siberian Territory, Krasnoyarsk Region Science and Siberia’s forests are in zones that forests could rise from an estimated Technology Support Fund (research project cannot be accessed for monitoring 120–140 teragrams to 230–240 number 17–41–240475). on the ground and that are not Fire Management Today 62 Figure 2—Geospatial distribution of the largest fres for fre seasons from 1999 to 2016. a = less than 49,400 acres (20,000 ha); b = 49,400 to 123,500 acres (20,000–50,000 ha); c = more than 123,500 acres (50,000 ha). Source: Sukachev Institute of Forest. Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 63 Figure 3—The rate of burning (percent of area per year) in clusters of the regular spatial network in geographic information systems (30 ´ 20 minutes, cluster area of about 247,000 acres (~100,000 ha)). Satellite fre monitoring data are for 1996–2016. Subregions and forest regions of Siberia: 1 = Evenkia, central Siberian fat taiga region; 2 = central Yakutia, eastern Siberian taiga–permafrost region; 3 = middle Angara, Angara forest region; 4 = Transbaikal, mountain and permafrost forest region; 5 = central Siberian plain–taiga region. Source: Sukachev Institute of Forest. served by aerial monitoring. These Available attributive databases zones can be monitored only High-intensity wildfres contain a number of fre parameters, by satellites. The monitoring is including: performed by the V.N. Sukachev make up 5.5 ±1.2 Institute of Forest, SB RAS/Federal percent of all wildfres • The area of thermal anomalies Research Center in Krasnoyarsk, (active burning zones for each 4–6 Russia, in association with the in the forests of Siberia hours); Russian Emergency Situations each year. • The area of the fre polygon Committee. These entities jointly calculated by geographic provide satellite monitoring in information system; Siberia and collect data on forest • The wildfre coordinates (data for fres based on imagery with a spatial High Resolution Radiometer the polygon center); resolution of 1,000 meters. (from 1996 to 2006) and from • Estimations of fre intensity (fre the U.S. National Aeronautics radiative power) (Kaufman and Monitoring has been taking and Space Administration’s others 1996; Kumar and others place since 1995. The wildfre Moderate Resolution Imaging 2011); and database was obtained from Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra • The total duration of fre processed multispectral satellite and Aqua satellites (from 2006 to development (time from the frst images from the U.S. National now). The database contains more to the last registration of the Oceanic and Atmospheric than 2 million records for the 22 thermal anomaly). Administration’s Advanced Very years of observation (fg. 2). Fire Management Today 64 Planned Development In 2017, an agreement was signed will allow managers to consider the between the Sukachev Institute problem of forests burning in central Plans for developing the satellite of Forest and the Global Fire and eastern Eurasia at regional and fre monitoring system in Russia Monitoring Center to make the larger scales. for large forest areas in central and institute an associate partner in eastern Siberia include basing it the Global Wildland Fire Network. on the platform of visible infrared Wildfre Dynamics in The current approach is for the imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) Siberia Regional Eurasian Fire Monitoring information from the Suomi Center in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, to The dynamics of wildfres in Siberia National Polar-orbiting Partnership closely collaborate with the Fire over the past 20 years correlate highly satellites. Spatial resolution of Management Resource Center– with meteorological anomalies, VIIRS imagery is up to 375 meters. Central Asia Region in Ulaanbaatar, such as extremes in temperature A substantial amount of satellite Mongolia. The goal is to serve variation, precipitation, and the imagery is already used in daily countries in the Central Asia and thermal-moisture index. Long-term monitoring and wildfre analysis, Eurasian Region through data meteorological data for Siberia show including verifcation of forest procurement as well as through regular intraseasonal decreases in disturbances and analysis of the archiving and interpreting satellite- precipitation availability, which condition and postfre dynamics derived information and historical has been 25 percent of the mean of tree stands. The data come data on wildland fres. Data on optimum level. Thus, decreasing from a new generation of satellites current and near-term wildfres in trends in the thermal-moisture (Landsat-8/OLI or Sentinel-2) as well Siberia will thereby supplement the index indicate the redistribution of as from Russian satellite information world system of fre monitoring. This precipitation over the subregions of (Resource-P, Kanopus). Siberia during the current year.

Figure 4—Forest Fire Danger Rating Map of the Russian Federation for July 25, 2017. The fve ratings range from low (dark green) to high (red). Source: Aerial Forest Fire Center Avialesookhrana.

Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 65 Figure 5—Forest fre management zones in the Russian Federation. In the Forest Fire Monitoring and Management Zone, regional authorities may decide to let wildfres burn under controlled conditions. Source: Aerial Forest Fire Center Avialesookhrana.

In the past 20 years, conditions with maximum burning in mid- with areas of 2,470 to 123,500 regularly favored large wildfre summer; and acres (1,000–50,000 ha); and occurrence and extreme burning 4. Season of extreme fre danger. 3. “Short-lived” fres, mostly steppe at the local scale in Siberia. Figure fres or fres caused by agricultural 3 shows the spatial distribution of The probability of extreme fre burning. forests burning in different parts danger is about 18 ±5 percent. The of Siberia from 1996 to 2016. The recurrence of extreme fre weather Statistically, 30 to 70 percent of the annual area burned varied from less conditions was assessed at 5–11 total area burned annually resulted than 0.5 percent to more than 10 years for different subregions of from large-scale fres, which make percent of the total forested area (fg. Siberia. Thus, under current climate up no more than 3 to 5 percent of all 3); the average for all Siberian forests conditions and future climate wildfres each year. All cases of extreme was 1.5 percent. That was almost scenarios, all services, municipalities, burning are distributed across remote three times greater, for example, and local governments should be subregions with low population than the average annual area burned ready to manage periodic extreme densities and poor infrastructure. (0.56 percent) for forests in western levels of burning, with up to 14.5 Accounting for half of Siberia, these Canada (de Groot and others 2013). percent of the forested area burned in areas are currently under satellite a single fre season. monitoring only. They lack any Four fre season scenarios were capacity for wildfre monitoring by characterized after long-term Wildfres in central and eastern aircraft or on the ground. meteorological data preprocessing: Siberia are classifed in three categories: In other parts of central and eastern 1. Season of low fre danger; Siberia, observation by air or on 2. Season of moderate fre danger 1. Wildfres burning up to 2,470 the ground is available, but satellite with maximum burning in spring; acres (1,000 ha); monitoring provides alternative daily 3. Season of moderate fre danger 2. Large-scale or extreme wildfres (or 6-hourly) updated information

Fire Management Today 66 about wildfre activity. Moreover, 1,500 weather stations feed the of central and eastern Siberia satellite-derived information necessary weather information into will depend on advances made about fre radiative power allows the system. in remote monitoring as well researchers to estimate the as on improvements in ground energy or intensity of active fres. All stakeholders, including forestry observations and information from According to annual statistics, authorities, emergency services, and aerial patrols. We conclude that the high-intensity wildfres make up 5.5 regional governments, have access effectiveness of fre management ±1.2 percent of all wildfres in the to the entirety of the information could be enhanced by: forests of Siberia each year. High- system. The information is available • Developing and operationalizing energy/intensity burning damages on the internet, including fre early fre detection technologies; an estimated 8.5 percent of Siberia’s danger ratings and information • Improving the accuracy of satellite- forested areas annually and up about operational activities. derived information in detecting and to 15 percent during fre seasons classifying active fres, notably small with extreme weather conditions Fire Management Zones fres, and the area burned; and (Ponomarev and others 2017). • Improving technologies for The Forest Code of Russia of 2006 classifying fre intensity/fre radiative divides the forested area of Russia power. Distance Monitoring of into three Forest Fire Management Forest Fires Zones (fg. 5). Each zone designation Such improvements would depends on the economic and The federal forestry agency’s yield more precise and reliable ecological value of the forests in the Information System of Distance information about wildfres. Better area, the socioeconomic development Monitoring for forest fres has been information would in turn help fre of the area, and the danger posed in operating since 2005. The system managers mitigate local and global the area by wildland fre. uses remote sensing technologies changes affecting forests in the to monitor forest fres. It constantly region, including the challenge of Once a designation is made, then expands opportunities to predict global climate change. the development of fre hazards in protection zones are delineated using ground, aerial, and satellite forests based on weather conditions, Literature Cited allowing fre managers to detect resources for fre monitoring fres in remote areas, analyze and management. Aerial Fire Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg. 2016. Suppression Zones are established Forest fres in the Russian Federation: 20 their development, and take the July 2016. http://www.fre.uni-freiburg.de/ necessary operational measures. where ground forces are not able GFMCnew/2016/07/20/20140720_ru.htm. to access remote areas within 3 [Date accessed unknown]. The system also allows fre hours. In the Fire Monitoring Bartalev, S.A.; Stytsenko, F.V.; Egorov, V.A.; Loupian, E.A. 2015. Satellite- managers to analyze the use of and Management Zone, regional authorities may decide to let based assessment of Russian forest fre frefghting resources and to mortality // Lesovedenie (Forestry). 2: compare fre information from forest fres burn under controlled 83–94. In Russian. regional forestry authorities with conditions. According to the de Groot, W.J.; Cantin, A.S.; Flannigan, remote monitoring data. The Forest Fire Fighting Regulation M.D.; Soja, A.J.; Gowman, L.M.; Newbery, of 2014, the executive authorities A. 2013. A comparison of Canadian and system also contains a lightning Russian boreal forest fre regimes. Forest registration unit, allowing it to of the Commission for Prevention Ecology and Management. 294: 23–34. accurately record thunderstorm and Elimination of Emergency DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.07.033. activity and to detect any resulting Situations in the regions of the Kaufman, Y.; Remer, L.; Ottmar R. [and fres so they can be attacked in a Russian Federation are authorized others]. 1996. Relationship between to decide whether or not to fght remotely sensed fre intensity and rate of timely manner. emission of smoke: SCAR-C experiment. The Nesterov Index is used to a wildfre. If they decide to let a In: Levine, J., ed. Global biomass burning. determine fre danger ratings wildland fre burn, satellite remote Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 685–696. based on weather conditions in the sensing information becomes critical Krylov, A.; McCarty, J.L.; Potapov, P. [and for monitoring the fre. others]. 2014. Remote sensing estimates Russian Federation (fg. 4). The of stand-replacement fres in Russia, index classifes fre danger on a 2002–2011. Environmental Research scale from 1 to 5; the main criteria Progress Needed Letters. 9: 1–8. DOI: 10.1088/1748- are number of rainless days, relative 9326/9/10/105007. Decision support for wildland fre Kumar, S.S.; Roy, D.P.; Boschetti, L.; humidity, and temperature. Over management in the remote parts Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 67 Kremens, R. 2011. Exploiting the Shvidenko, A.Z.; Shchepashchenko, D.G.; power law distribution properties of Vaganov, E.A. [and others]. 2011. Impact satellite fre radiative power retrievals: of wildfre in Russia between 1998–2010 a method to estimate fre radiative on ecosystems and the global carbon energy and biomass burned from budget. Doklady Earth Sciences. 441(2): sparse satellite observations. Journal of 1678–1682. Geophysical Research. 116(D19): 1–18. Zamolodchikov, D.G.; Grabovskii, V.I.; DOI: 10.1029/2011JD015676. Kraev, G.N. 2011. Dynamics of the carbon Ponomarev, E.I.; Kharuk, V.I. 2016. budget of Russian forests over the past Wildfre occurrence in forests of the two decades. Lesovedenie (Forestry). 6: Altai–Sayan region under current climate 16–28. changes. Contemporary Problems of Ecology. 9(1): 29–36. DOI: 10.1134/ S199542551601011X. Additional References Ponomarev, E.I.; Kharuk, V.I.; Ranson, J.K. Goldammer, J.G., ed. 2013. Prescribed 2016. Wildfres dynamics in Siberian burning in Russia and neighbouring larch forests. Forests. 7(125): 1–9. DOI: temperate-boreal Eurasia: a publication 10.3390/f7060125. of the Global Fire Monitoring Center. Ponomarev, E.I.; Shvetsov, E.G.; Usataya, Remagen-Oberwinter, Germany: Kessel Yu.O. 2017. Registration of wildfre Publishing House. 326 p. energy characteristics in Siberian forests Goldammer, J.G.; Furyaev, V.V., eds. 1996. using remote sensing. Issledovanie Zemli Fire in ecosystems of boreal Eurasia. iz Kosmosa (Remote Sensing for Earth Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Investigation). 4: 3–11. In Russian. DOI: Academic Publishers. 528 p. ■ 10.7868/S0205961417040017.

SUCCESS STORIES WANTED! We’d like to know how your work has been going! Let us share your success stories from your State fre program or your individual fre department. Let us know how your State Fire Assistance, Volunteer Fire Assistance, Federal Excess Personal Property, or Firefghter Property program has benefted your community. Make your piece as short as 100 words or longer than 2,000 words, whatever it takes to tell your story! Submit your stories and photographs by email or traditional mail to:

USDA Forest Service Fire Management Today 201 14th Street, SW Washington, DC 20250 Email: [email protected]

If you have questions about your submission, you can contact our FMT staff at the email address above.

Fire Management Today 68 FACING THE FLAMES—LOOKING FORWARD AS A GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Lindon Pronto and Jameson Karns

decade ago, the Global Fire other parts of the world where emergency response and evacuation Monitoring Center (GFMC) fre is considered a less common systems and, more importantly, Apublished its frst collection of phenomenon: Sweden, Norway, are highlighting critical failures in articles in Fire Management Today Finland, Greenland, and at very high landscape management and periurban to establish a greater awareness latitudes across Russia, to name a planning. From these crises, there of international fre management. handful. The Nordic countries aside, is hope for progress as agencies and With this issue, our intent remains countries across middle Europe that governmental bodies begin to reach the same. The preceding articles have been generally spared from beyond their borders for collaboration offer snapshots of international fre, like Germany, Ireland, and the and as they come together under these fre management achievements, United Kingdom, saw fre activity trying circumstances. obstacles, and studies from nearly every region on the globe. As the matrix of human-environmental These “fre stakeholders” live in or infuence the conditions continues to shift, it is clear that fre management as an landscapes in which the fres occur that require a interdisciplinary feld will continue response from policymakers and practitioners. to grow globally.

Challenges Before Us at its highest levels in decades. In Taking a step back, fre is part of our The past 2 years (2017–18) have once southern Europe, Spain, Portugal, planet’s heritage as well as our own. again validated the challenges before and Greece were devastated, with In our shared environmental history, us. A changing climate, with increased thousands of homes destroyed and fre has endured as a natural and human infuence on the atmosphere, hundreds of lives lost. In 2017, vital process that—with or without continues to intersect with weather Chile and Argentina experienced human intervention—has sought extremes. The North American fre unprecedented fre seasons; South equilibrium in the biophysical management community is aware of Africa, Zimbabwe, and Syria were world. Today’s challenges in fre the devastating and record-setting fres also hard hit. Israel/Palestine, Iran, management are intricate and in Fort McMurray, Canada; in Wine and Turkey are in the midst of a complicated. Across the globe, as the Country and Redding, CA; and across crisis where fre is being used as a articles in this issue demonstrate, the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains. weapon in armed confict. landscape degradation and land use change are resulting in the We would be remiss if we did All this is to say that countries decreased resilience of ecosystems not illustrate similar episodes in well accustomed to fre are being and resources, leading to higher confronted with new extremes susceptibility to fre. Across the that are challenging contemporary world, the ability of ecosystems to Lindon Pronto is an offcer of the Global suppression tactics, while countries adapt to stressors is becoming more Fire Monitoring Center, Max Planck less frequented by fre are confronted limited, affecting fre regime shifts Institute for Chemistry, Freiburg, Germany; with signifcant limitations to their because of edge effects, invasive and Jameson Karns is a graduate student in the Department of History at the University ability to respond to a hazard that, species, speciation/vegetation cover of California in Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, until now, has been rather benign. changes from high-mortality fres, and an associate partner at the Global Fire The more extreme events, as we have more frequent fre return intervals, Monitoring Center, Max Planck Institute for witnessed in Portugal in 2017 and in drought, and nonfre-related human Chemistry, Freiburg, Germany. Greece in 2018, are overwhelming activities. A vulnerable environment Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 69 is less likely to withstand strains, and As the articles on West Africa and informed) projection of natural a diminished capacity to generate South Asia show, this is especially evolutionary processes. Learning ecosystem services can have negative true in countries where agricultural the hard way, we are discovering consequences for all life forms and burning is widespread, comprising that Nature aims to correct and certainly the power to force changes the primary source of wildfres. Yet restore herself regardless of human or adaptations in daily human life. this is a nuanced arena because fre- ambitions, needs, or wants. tolerant/fre-dependent landscapes Despite mostly human-induced may need fre or because fre use is As land managers, we must respond changes to the landscape, Nature, among cultural/cultivation activities to immediate challenges, but we it seems, has a keen memory that have spanned generations of must also prioritize and invest concerning our environmental land managers. in identifying and resolving root trespasses, and she “remembers” problems. Anticipating increased a presettlement landscape. Yet, funding for prevention and adaptation as Holling (2001) points out, The science–policy– work may seem unpredictable at best; “hierarchies and adaptive cycles but remember that elsewhere in the comprise the basis of ecosystems practitioner interface world, where resources are in much and social-ecological systems across must inform decision shorter supply, people have learned scales.” Consequently, in North to do more with less. The world over, America, nearly a century of fre makers and support our indigenous ancestors have been exclusion is now being followed the development of (and still are) resilient custodians of by a period of “revolt,” with fres policies that not only fre. While sustainable fre use in Sub- of growing size and severity as Saharan Africa or by the Dayak people Nature’s way of “remembering” deal with current of Borneo may not seem comparable stable presettlement fre regimes, challenges but also with fre outbreaks in California’s when landscapes had a much Central Valley or Greece’s resort town different equilibrium, before the anticipate future ones. of Mati, “advanced” fre management buildup of fuels in our forests. The could certainly stand to gain some resulting extremely severe, often insight from less “developed” country almost “explosive” landscape fres Outlook contexts. The knowledge of “living can be viewed as Nature’s attempt to with fre” can and should be shared Guest editor Jameson Karns began restore herself. around the proverbial campfre, this special issue of Fire Management regardless of borders, socioeconomic Today by exploring the history of The same pattern is observable standing, or the sophistication of fre the GFMC and the Global Wildland around the world, in localities management approaches. Fire Network; together, both guest disrupted by human activities. editors are closing it with the long- Many of these places are now The GFMC and network partners view perspective. On the one hand, being overrun with fre, the effect are continually engaged in this land managers are suffering the of which is the gradual ecological conversation—a process that often worldwide consequences of our past “remembrance” of a landscape prior includes calling for a review of current mistakes, be it the exclusion of fre to human disturbances. A critical practices and assumptions and from fre-dependent ecosystems or but often overlooked point is that working across barriers of language, the replacement of natural landscapes people are integral to the health and experience, or technical or fnancial with manmade monoforests. On success of these landscapes. Fire resources. We advocate for a discipline the other hand, we can now observe managers and decision makers often for assessing and designing human- complex processes of social-ecological struggle to engage and connect with ecological systems in ways that revolts and ecological self-restoration. wider audiences who have a stake in allow us to be resilient in the face of In this respect, it may prove fre challenges; chief among these is landscape fre because controlling fre constructive to consider what our the fre use community, not just the is an undesirable and futile exercise; landscapes might look like in 50 years fre response community. These “fre it is imperative, however, to adapt if humans disappeared tomorrow. We stakeholders” live in or infuence to fre. For instance, we have been could then design landscape planning the landscapes in which the fres duly warned that a paradigm shift is and management strategies based on occur that require a response from imminent (for example, see Olsen and compatibility with the (scientifcally policymakers and practitioners. Bengston 2015). Fire Management Today 70 In summation, the GFMC and our 4 years, respectively, in Australia, cooperative multilateral and global partners in the Global Wildland Spain, South Africa, and Asia. We efforts and events, as well as extensive Fire Network address landscape look forward to seeing you at the data collection. The events and fre policies and practices 7th International Wildland Fire ongoing involvements of the GFMC through holistic approaches with Conference in Campo Grande, Brazil, can also be tracked through the cross-disciplinary stakeholder from October 28 to November 1, 2019 GFMC Calendar. Nearly all of our involvement. This means (http://gfmc.online/conferences/iwfc. work has been digitized and made recognizing the value of science, html). available for free online. We have the accumulated experience of created several hundred thousand professionals and communities As evidenced by this ever-expanding documents and web pages, including alike, and the knowledge held series, both acknowledging and publications, the International Forest by indigenous peoples. The fnal acting on the global implications Fire News archive (1989–2014), piece of the puzzle, in our view, of vegetation fres has become international analyses and reports, is ecological knowledge derived an important contribution to white papers, a trove of gray literature, through science. The science– understanding fre outside of its local global outreach essays, events and policy–practitioner interface (SPPI) context. It is our hope that the spirit milestones, and so much more. must inform decision makers and of international engagement will support the development of policies give way to a more globally coherent Finally, this edition of Fire that not only deal with current and offcially recognized forum, Management Today has provided challenges but also anticipate future convention, or other arrangement an opportunity for us at the GFMC ones—especially the extremely that addresses landscape fre to refect on the efforts of the complex systems we have alluded to challenges at a supranational international fre management above. While this task is daunting, level. It is worth noting that, of community and allowed us to also the good news is that developing the four classical elements, fre look towards the forthcoming or reforming fre management is the only element that is not obstacles and opportunities. policy is a task often brokered by explicitly addressed by international Assembling the studies and efforts of single dedicated individuals who agreements, frameworks, or fre managers across the globe into a persistently operate within the SPPI conventions of the sort that exist for single collection has been a daunting (Pronto 2016). soils, water, and the atmosphere. And feat. Foreign languages, time zones, when it comes to natural disasters and the duty each of us shares to International Approach challenging us in an era of global respond to incidents (it is always change, landscape fres are arguably fre season somewhere) made this Broadly speaking, fre now poses the only natural disaster that in edition a particularly challenging a threat on a variety of fronts: theory can be anticipated, prevented, and long process. Therefore, all of us environmental stability, economic mitigated, or stopped before or while in the Global Wildland Fire Network security, and human health and it is happening (Pronto 2016). would like to recognize that this safety—but internationally it still publication would not have been lacks effective political recognition We hope to see the continual possible without the patience, time, and legitimization inside and across development of such dialogue, energy, and efforts of Managing borders. For this reason, government inquiry, and policy implementation. Editor Hutch Brown. representatives, land management Expanding partnerships and open institutions, and professionals and dialogue is crucial in this endeavor, experts have been convening for Literature Cited and we would like to invite readers of over 25 years as an international fre Holling, C.S. 2001. Understanding the Fire Management Today to participate management community to assess complexity of economic, ecological, and in the Global Wildland Fire Network. social systems. Ecosystems. 4(5): 390–405. challenges at multiple governance There are a number of opportunities Olsen, R.L.; Bengston, D.N. 2015. A world levels and encourage a deeper to engage with or join the GFMC on fre. Foresight report, Spring/Summer. understanding of contemporary Freeland, WA: AAI Foresight Inc. 15 p. community—if nothing else, you can fre management complexities at Pronto, L.N. 2016. Brokering effective explore the GFMC website (http:// the International Wildland Fire fre management at the science-policy www.gfmc.online), which provides interface. Freiburg, Germany: University Conferences. The series originated in a collection of breaking news items of Freiburg. M.Sc. thesis. Boston in 1989, traveled to Canada in ■ on the policies and politics shaping 1997, and has since been held every or responding to landscape fres, Volume 77 • No. 1 • 2019 71 today GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Fire Management Today (FMT) captions and photographer’s name clear writing, use the active voice is an international quarterly and affliation at the end of the (for example, write “Fire managers magazine for the wildland fre manuscript. Submit charts and know…” and not “It is known…”). community. The purpose of FMT graphs along with the electronic Give spellouts for all abbreviations. is to share information and raise source fles or data needed to issues related to wildland fre reconstruct them and any special Tables management for the beneft of instructions for layout. Include a Tables should be logical and the wildland fre community. FMT description of each illustration at understandable without reading the welcomes unsolicited manuscripts the end of the manuscript for use text. Include tables at the end of the from readers on any subject in the caption. manuscript with appropriate titles. related to fre management. For all submissions, include However, FMT is not a forum for the complete name(s), title(s), Photographs airing personal grievances or for affliation(s), and address(es) and Illustrations marketing commercial products. of the author(s), illustrator(s), Figures, illustrations, and clear The Forest Service’s Fire and and photographer(s), as well photographs are often essential Aviation Management staff reserves as their telephone number(s) to the understanding of articles. the right to decline submissions and email address(es). If the Clearly label all photographs that do not meet the purpose of same or a similar manuscript is and illustrations (Figure 1, 2, the journal. being submitted for publication 3; photograph A, B, C). At the elsewhere, include that end of the manuscript, include Submissions information also. Authors should clear, thorough fgure and photo submit a photograph of themselves Send electronic fles by email or captions labeled in the same way or a logo for their agency, traditional mail to: as the corresponding material institution, or organization. (Figure 1, 2, 3; photograph A, USDA Forest Service B, C). Captions should make Fire Management Today Style photographs and illustrations 201 14th Street, SW Authors are responsible for using understandable without reading Washington, D.C. 20250 wildland fre terminology that the text. For photographs, indicate the name and affliation of the Email: conforms to the latest standards photographer and the year the [email protected] set by the National Wildfre Coordinating Group under the photo was taken. Submit electronic fles in PC National Interagency Incident format. Submit manuscripts in Management System. FMT uses Release Authorization Word (.doc or .docx). Submit the spelling, capitalization, Non-Federal Government authors illustrations and photographs as hyphenation, and other styles must sign a release to allow their separate fles; do not include visual recommended in the U.S. work to be placed in the public materials (such as photographs, Government Printing Offce domain and on the World Wide maps, charts, or graphs) as Style Manual, as required by the Web. In addition, all photographs embedded illustrations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. and illustrations created by a non- electronic manuscript fle. You Authors should use the U.S. Federal employee require a written may submit digital photographs system of weight and measure, release by the photographer or in JPEG, TIFF, EPS, or other with equivalent values in the illustrator. The author, photograph, format; they must be at high metric system. Keep titles concise and illustration release forms resolution: at least 300 dpi at a and descriptive; subheadings and are available upon request at minimum size of 4 by 7 inches. bulleted material are useful and [email protected]. Include information for photo help readability. As a general rule of Volume 76 • No. 2 • 2018 Fire Management Today 72 72