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A New Picture of Fire Extent, Variability, and Drought Interaction in Prescribed Fire Landscapes: Insights From Florida Government Records
Author(s) -
Nowell H. K.,
Holmes C. D.,
Robertson K.,
Teske C.,
Hiers J. K.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2018gl078679
Subject(s) - environmental science , satellite , fire regime , fire protection , prescribed burn , damages , climate change , environmental resource management , meteorology , climatology , geography , ecology , geology , engineering , cartography , oceanography , ecosystem , civil engineering , political science , law , biology , aerospace engineering
Florida, United States, government records provide a new resource for studying fire in landscapes managed with prescribed fire. In Florida, most fire area (92%) is prescribed. Current satellite fire products, which underpin most air pollution emission inventories, detect only 25% of burned area, which alters airborne emissions and environmental impacts. Moreover, these satellite products can misdiagnose spatiotemporal variability of fires. Overall fire area in Florida decreases during drought conditions as prescribed fires are avoided, but satellite data do not reflect this pattern. This pattern is consistent with prescribed fire successfully reducing overall fire risk and damages. Human management of prescribed fires and fuels can, therefore, break the conventional link between drought and wildfire and play an important role in mitigating rising fire risk in a changing climate. These results likely apply in other regions of the world with similar fire regimes.