Abstract
Anomalies in temperature and precipitation in northern Russia over the past few years have been viewed as manifestations of anthropogenic climate change1, prompting suggestions that this may also account for exceptional forest fires in the region2,3. Here we examine the number of forest-fire events across the boreal Russian Federation for the period 2002 to 2005 in ‘intact’ forests, where human influence is limited, and in ‘non-intact’ forests, which have been shaped by human activity4. Our results show that there were more fires in years during which the weather was anomalous, but that more than 87% of fires in boreal Russia were started by people.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Thompson, D. W. J. & Wallace, J. M. Science 293, 85–89 (2001).
Dale, V. H. et al. BioScience 51, 723–734 (2001).
Schiermeier, Q. Nature 435, 732–733 (2005).
Aksenov, D. et al. Atlas of Russia's Intact Forest Landscapes (Global Forest Watch Russia, Moscow, 2002); available at http://forest.ru/eng/publications/intact/
Sukhinin, A. et al. Remote Sens. Environ. 93, 546–564 (2004).
Goldammer, J. G., Sukhinin, A. & Csiszar, I. Int. Forest Fire News [online] 29, 〈http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/iffn/iffn_online.htm〉 (2003).
International Research Institute for Climate Prediction IRI Map Room (2005); available at http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom
Mouillot, F. & Field, C. B. Global Change Biol. 11, 398–420 (2005).
Bartalev, S., Belward, A. S., Erchov, D. & Isaev, A. S. Int. J. Remote Sens. 24, 1977–1982 (2003).
Justice, C. O. et al. Remote Sens. Environ., 83, 244–262 (2002).
Achard, F., Stibig, H. -J., Laestadius, L., Yaroshenko, A. & Aksenov, D. Identification of “Hot Spot Areas” of Forest Cover Changes in Boreal Eurasia (European Commission, Luxembourg, 2005); available at http://ies.jrc.cec.eu.int/364.html
Karpachevskiy, M. Forest Fires in the Russian Taiga: Natural Disaster or Poor Management? (Taiga Rescue Network Factsheet, Jokkmokk, Sweden, 2004).
Dienes, L. Eurasian Geogr. Econ. 45, 319–345 (2004).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
(PDF 263 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mollicone, D., Eva, H. & Achard, F. Human role in Russian wild fires. Nature 440, 436–437 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/440436a
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/440436a
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Shifts in Ecological Legacies Support Hysteresis of Stand Type Conversions in Boreal Forests
Ecosystems (2023)
-
GIS-based forest fire risk determination for Milas district, Turkey
Natural Hazards (2023)
-
Effect of outdoor recreation on forest phytocenosis
Biodiversity and Conservation (2022)
-
Wildfires in the Arctic and tropical biomes: what is the relative role of climate?
Natural Hazards (2022)
-
Isotopic responses to dry and wet episodes as captured in tree rings of southern Altai relict forests
European Journal of Forest Research (2021)