UPSC Articles
Climate Change and Forest Fire Link
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Climate change
In news
- Scientists have noted that human-induced climate change promotes the conditions on which wildfires depend.
Important value additions
Wildfire
- It is also called forest, bush or vegetation fire.
- It is any uncontrolled burning of plants in a natural setting such as a forest, grassland which consumes the natural fuels and spreads based on wind, topography.
- These can be incited by human actions, such as land clearing, extreme drought or in rare cases by lightning.
- Three conditions needed for a wildfire: fuel, oxygen, and a heat source.
- Globally, forest fires release billions of tons of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- Hundreds of thousands of people die due to illnesses caused by exposure to smoke
- Factors: (1) Climate change increases the frequency; (2) Poor land and forest management
