Holdover fire

In wildfires, a holdover fire, or overwintering fire is a peat fire which persists from year to year. It is also sometimes called a "zombie fire".

Fires

Such fires typically occur in Arctic tundra, smouldering during the winter under the snow and then becoming more intense during the summer.

A study conducted from 2002–2018 in Alaska and the Northwest Territories found that this type of fire burned only 0.8% of the total area burned by all types of fires and that this type of fire caused only 0.5% of the total carbon emissions released by all types of fires.[1]

During the summer of 2019, such fires were estimated to have generated 173 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2),[2] with an estimate of 244 million tonnes from January to August 2019.[3] The smoke and soot from such fires darken the region, so contributing to further warming and further fires.[4] The loss of peat is also a loss of a store for CO2.[3] Images from satellites such as Sentinel-2 have been used to identify such hot spots.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kann, Drew (19 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' are already smoldering in the Arctic. They could become more common as the planet warms". CNN. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  2. ^ "The fires within the deep – Have Siberian fires been smouldering underground all winter?", The Economist, 6 June 2020
  3. ^ a b Harrabin, Roger (3 September 2020). "Zombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions". BBC News.
  4. ^ Wheeling, Kate (30 June 2020), "The rise of zombie fires", Eos, 101 (101), doi:10.1029/2020EO146119
  5. ^ Rebecca Scholten; Sander Veraverbeke (2020), "Spatiotemporal patterns of overwintering fire in Alaska" (PDF), Fire Science Highlight, Alaska Fire Science Consortium

Further reading

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