Causes
A deep dive into causes of Wildfires
Hot lightning strikes generate intense heat that occur for long periods of time, leading to natural wildfires. Research shows that the likelihood of these strikes will increase as global warming progresses. it is predicted that lightning strikes will increase by 28% in 2090.
The lack of water in the soil leads to increased amount of dry vegetations which subsequently becomes fuel for wildfires, escalating it tremendously and quickly.
Moreover, the drying up of natural water sources also makes it more challenging to extinguish wildfires.
Climate change is predicted to more severe and longer droughts, this increases the likelihood of wildfires.
Smoking fires are wildfires caused by the discarding of unextinguished cigarettes or other materials used during the activity of smoking.
Discarding cigarette butts is one of the most common causes of human-induced wildfires.
However, in the past few years smoking fires have decreased by 90% since 1980. That was significantly due to the design and materials of the cigarette itself, rather than a reduction in number of smokers.
Organic material is usually disposed by burning it.
The dead vegetation, including pruned branches, leaves, shrubs and grass clippings are collected and burned to ashes to get rid of it. This practice has significant negative impacts on the environment ranging from releasing toxins into the air we breathe, as well as leading to out-of-control wildfires.
On a particularly windy day, the escaped embers are carried for miles without extinguishing increasing the range of spread of wildfire immensely.
Lava, the molten rock from volcanic eruptions, can reach over 1,200 degrees Celsius and is powerful enough to ignite wildfires. This phenomenon creates a unique interplay between fire and earth, where the intense heat from the lava rapidly spreads flames, reshaping landscapes. As lava-induced fires clear vegetation, they can even redirect lava flows, demonstrating a dynamic and ever-changing natural process. These events play a critical role in ecological succession, paving the way for new life in the aftermath of destruction.
The SPEI Global Drought Monitor offers near real-time information about drought conditions at the global scale, with a 1 degree spatial resolution and a monthly time resolution. SPEI time-scales between 1 and 48 months are provided. The calibration period for the SPEI is January 1950 to December 2010. The starting date of the dataset is 1955 in order to provide common information across the different SPEI time-scales.
