As wildfires rage across Canada, one fire in particular highlights concerns about so-called "zombie fires."
Authorities in the Northwest Territory are monitoring a large fire that flared up after it had been dormant underground over the winter.
Winter-long fires in Canada were once considered a rare phenomenon, but experts say these events are becoming more common as temperatures rise and snowfall decreases. It warns that it has become
According to the BC Wildfire Service, "zombie fires" (more commonly known as overwintering or holdover fires) burned deep underground in the previous year. Occurs when a wildfire occurs. It was smoldering all winter.
Officials warn that these "residual hot spots" could reappear when warm, dry weather sets in in the spring.
Wilfrid Laurier University Jennifer Baltzer, an associate professor of biology in the United States and chairman of the Canadian Research Commission on Forests and Global Change, told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview Monday. Tree roots and pots, or peat soils in the affected landscape.
Such phenomena could cause the wildfire season to start earlier and last longer than expected, she said. Baltzer added that overwintering fires can cause much greater changes to ecosystems and cause carbon loss than regular wildfires.
"A season fire burns through the season and then ends. A smoldering fire, on the other hand, continues to burn wood and peat soil very slowly during the winter. ' said Balzer.
According to a 2021 study, a small fraction (about 1%) of the total area burned in the Northwest Territories and Alaska between 2022 and her 2018 It was caused by a wintering fire.
However, researchers at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Alaska Fairbanks found a "staggering" increase in the number of overwinter fires reported in individual years.
} For example, in Alaska, winter fires accounted for 38% of the landscape burned during the 2008 wildfire season, according to a study.
Experts suggest thatclimate change could make"zombie fires" more common. This is because the hot, dry conditions associated with intense fire years can cause deep combustion of carbon-rich biomass.
Increases in summer temperatures associated with climate warming will promote the persistence of future overwintering fires, increasing We discovered that it could threaten northern regions, including the northern regions of the state.
Baltzer, who leads his team of researchers collecting field data on 'zombie fires' in the Northwest Territories,36 said these fires are contributing to Canada's carbon loss and reforestation. We would like to further analyze how the
Baltzer explained that shrubs that recover quickly from wildfires can do this thanks to their underground plant systems. It damages nurseries and "prevents regeneration and recolonization of these sites" after fires, she said. Because it's changing," Baltzer said. “High-latitude systems are warming at about three to four times the rate of Earth…and this very rapid warming is making these systems more combustible…[resulting in] a wider area are burning, fires are burning more severely, and they are breaking out more frequently.”
Baltzer said the steadily increasing wildfire activity in a Following an increase in years, he said overwintering fires were "intrinsically linked to climate change."
said that fossil fuel emissions must be reduced to slow the overall production of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
While she acknowledges that this requires significant effort and is beyond the scope of her research team, she is providing information to fire managers to better understand where "zombie fires" are located in Canada. She says she is working to Help her understand how these fires behave and how to respond.
Full screen map showing wildfires burning across North America from ESRI Canada
Map
Using files from The Canadian Press
