World on Fire

From Bob Clark’s snug offi ce in Boise, Idaho, where he manages the United States government’s Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), he fi gures his computer provides fi ngertip reach to just about everybody who’s anybody in wildfi re research. This points to a primary need of nations worldwide in combating the scourge of recurrent wildfi res: tools and technology suited to the job. It’s no small order in places as economically, socially, and ecologically varied as, say, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States, which are among the countries where wildfi re creates the greatest havoc. More than 750,000 acres (303,500 hectares) were burned in southern California alone during last year’s wildfi res. The 2000 season was one of the country’s worst on record, destroying 8.4 million acres (3.4 million hectares), more than double the decade’s 10-year average. Australia’s summer months around the turn of 2002–2003 brought perhaps the worst drought in a century to the populous southeast and the biggest fi re season for two decades. Mountain forests were extensively burned and more than 500 houses were lost. In 2002, Brazil suffered 217,000 wildfi res, a number that is almost certainly too low because remote imaging cannot detect many fi res under the forest canopy. In Indonesia, wildfi res that burned for months during 1997–1998 were later estimated to have released the equivalent to 13%–40% of annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, infl icting smoke-related ailments on thousands. Where wildfi re is concerned, the many differences between such countries can perhaps be pinned down to two essentials. The fi rst is whether a blaze occurs in temperate or tropical forest, and the second is whether the nation is developed or developing. “The science can be rock solid, but it can only go so far before social, economic, and political pressures take over,” Clark says. “That’s what a forest service manager’s job is, picking the best option based on all those considerations.”