Keynote 3 - Why large extreme fires are like elephants, and what we can do about it
Sally Archibald, Professor at the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa |
Short Biography: Sally Archibald works on understanding the dynamics and biogeography of savanna ecosystems and is the co-PI of the “Future Ecosystems for Africa” program. Her work integrates field ecological data, remote sensing, modelling, and biogeochemistry. Sally’s research has contributed key insights into global fire regimes, fire-climate feedbacks, and the role of disturbance in maintaining biodiversity. Her work on savanna ecosystem functioning is contributing towards better definitions of degradation in tropical ecosystems. She is on the advisory board of the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires Environment and Society and the SEOSAW steering committee. She is an associate editor for Ecology Letters and Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Short Summary: Fires have burned on Earth ever since terrestrial plants evolved and provided a source of fuel and oxygen. Current fire regimes are the result of constraints imposed by rates of fuel build-up and ecosystem flammability, with more intense fires found in places with longer fire return periods. However, global patterns of wildfire are changing in response to both the biophysical and the biological impacts of human activities. Attempts to tame wildfire have often resulted in perverse and undesired outcomes, yet there is growing consensus that living on a fiery planet requires engaging in prescribed fire and in fire management across a range of biomes and fire regimes. Here I address these issues from three perspectives. First, I describe the biophysical controls of wildfire, and the complexity of understanding percolation, fire spread, and power-law distributions. Second, I discuss why extreme wildfires are like elephants, and contrast “the elephant problem” with “the extreme wildfire problem”. Finally, I explore what managing wildfire means in terms of our engagement with risk, and propose some constructive ways forward for living with wildfire.