Forest Fires

Forests are vital for human health and the environment. Spending time in forests improves mental and physical health, provides oxygen, purifies water, and helps mitigate climate change. Forest fires have devastating effects on the climate, air quality, and wildlife. Some major forest fires include the 2003 Siberian taiga fires, the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires, and the 2014 Northwest Territories fires. Fire-prone conditions are increasing due to climate change and forest degradation. Preventing forest fires is crucial for protecting the Earth and combating environmental issues. Advanced technologies like drones and AI-powered maps are being used to detect and fight wildfires. It's important to take action to prevent small environmental problems from growing into larger ones and hurting our planet. Hello everyone, my name is Maggie, and welcome to the E.cola podcast. Today I will be talking about forest fires and why we should try to prevent them. But first, let's start with the definitions. A forest is a large area covered chiefly with trees and undergrowth. A fire is a combustion or burning in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air so that people can give out bright light, heat, and smoke. Forests are home to more than three quarters of the world's life on land. And tropical rainforests are home to more species than any other tourist habitat. A square kilometer of forest may be home to more than a thousand species. Here are five ways that forests can impact on human health. First, spending time outside improves mental health. There is specific evidence that shows that exclusive forests can actually reduce human stress levels, help us recover from attention fatigue, and generally improve overall mood. Second, taking a walk through the forest can benefit physical health. In addition to improving overall mental state, spending time in a forest has been shown to have genuine physical health benefits. People say they feel less stress in forests, but it turns out that this is linked to an actual reduction of the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This leads to quicker rehabilitation times for people who are ill or injured. Forest visits can also actually strengthen the human immune system so people don't get sick in the first place. Third, forests provide oxygen for our lungs. This one's a no-brainer, but I can't write and talk about the positive impacts of forests without mentioning it. Trees provide us with the oxygen we breathe. When they make glucose from sunlight, trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen as a byproduct. Fourth, forests purify and provide clean water for our communities. This is a big one. More than 3,000 communities across the United States get their drinking water from watersheds located on national forests and grasslands. These landscapes catch copious amounts of runoff and allow it to ill-infiltrate back into the groundwater. This feature of forests also helps mitigate the impacts of flooding. The complex root system of the trees holds the soil in place, keeping excessive amounts of sediment from polluting our waters. Fifth, trees help mitigate the effects of climate change. As was briefly mentioned before, forests produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that gets trapped in our atmosphere and compounds the warming of our planet, and forests can help combat that process. By absorbing the gas during photosynthesis and storing it in their wood, leaves, and the soil, trees keep more carbon dioxide from ending up in the atmosphere where it traps heat. Wildfires also simulaneously impact weather and the climate by releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fire particulate matter into the atmosphere. Resilient air pollution can cause a range of health issues. Researchers estimated that about 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent were released by the fires, compared with about 65 million metric tons of reductions achieved in the previous 18 years. Wildfires release carbon emissions that affect climate and drive climate change-related events that contribute to even more wildfires. Beyond the human and societal impact, wildfires also affect the Earth's climate. Forests, in particular, store large amounts of carbon. When they burn, they immediately release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which in turn contributes to climate change. Wildfires can disrupt transportation, communication, power and gas services, and water supply. They also lead to a deterioration of the air quality and loss of property, crops, resources, animals, and people. It burns down the small shrubs and grasses, leading to landslides and soil erosion. Burning of forests causes smoke and poisonous gas emissions that result in significant health issues in humans. Loss of trees can disrupt the climate condition and break down the carbon chain. Here are the top three biggest forest fires. First, 2003 Siberian taiga fires, Russia, 55 million acres. In 2003, during one of the hottest summers Europe experienced up to that point, a series of extremely devastating blazes in the taiga forests of eastern Siberia destroyed over 55 million acres, 22 million hectares, of land. A combination of extremely arid conditions and increased human exploitation during recent decades are believed to have played a role in what is remembered as one of the most devastating and largest fires in human history. Second, 1919-2020 Australian bushfires, Australia, 42 million acres. The 2020 Australian bushfires went down in history for their catastrophic impact on wildlife. The extreme bushfires tore through New South Wales and Queensland in southern eastern Australia burning 42 million acres, destroying thousands of buildings and killing dozens of people as well as 3 billion animals, including a staggering 61,000 koalas. Australia experienced the hottest and driest year in its recorded history in late 2019-early 2020, which was a major contribution factor to devastating wildfires. Third, 2014 Northwest Territories fires, Canada, 8.5 million acres. In the summer of 2014, over 150 separate fires broke out across the Northwest Territories, an area of about 442 square miles, 1.1 billion square kilometers, in northern Canada. 13 of them were believed to have been caused by humans. The smokes they generated sparked air quality warnings across the whole country as well as in the U.S., with smokes visible as far away as Portugal and Western Europe. In higher latitude forests, fires help maintain a healthy forest ecosystem by releasing important nutrients into the soil and aiding in seed dispersal. In tropical forests, local and indigenous communities have used controlled fires for centuries to clear land for agriculture. Climate change and forest degradation and fragmentation have led to more fire-prone conditions globally. With hotter and drier conditions, fires, either ignited by humans or by lightning, are more likely to burn over larger areas and at hotter temperatures. Forests degraded by logging and disease and fragmented by deforestation are also susceptible to fire. Prescribed burning improves maintenance of infrastructure, awareness-raising and education on fire-prevention, and policy interventions such as fire bans can reduce the risk of forest fires. Protecting forests from deforestation and degradation also improves forest resilience to fire. The four weather elements responsible for either the speed of fire or natural wildfire suspension include temperature, perception, relative humidity, and wind speed. Specifically, a significant decrease in wind speed and an increase in relative humidity are the two primary factors that help wildfires stop naturally. Naturally occurring wildfires are most frequently caused by lightning. There are also volcanic, meteors, and coal-steam fires depending on the circumstances. Human-caused wildfires can be accidental or intentional. While firefighting has largely remained unchanged, high-tech solutions are changing how wildfires are battled. Technologies such as drones, robots, and satellites are all being used to detect, impregnate, and dose fires. DRIOT's Ultra-Early Wildfire Detection System, also known as SOLONET, consists of solar-powered sensors that monitor for signs of smoldering fires, including temperature, humidity, air pressure, and even gases emitted when plants are on fire. AI-powered maps that predict the trajectory of fires and drones to increase situational awareness and safety for firefighters are just two of the many technologies being leveraged to help fight wildfires. Forest fires are not that big of an issue like global warming and air pollution, but they are also causing and developing those environmental issues. Wildlife fires may be a very small part of our environment, but they definitely leave scars onto our planet. If we manage to prevent forest fires as much as possible, we'd be able to save the Earth and even try to help it heal after all the issues threatening to destroy it. The risk of climate change, air pollution, and deforestation will stop growing at such a high level, and the ozone layer will start healing, making it impossible for the UV light to come into the atmosphere. We don't have much time to save our planet, but if we do little things to help prevent tiny environmental problems, we could also help stop larger and more dangerous ones from growing and developing and hurting our planet. With this, I would like to finish the Eco-Podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it and you understood the importance forest fires hold in our everyday life. And remember, the Earth loves you, so love it back.