PARIS, Feb 23, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - The number of major wildfires worldwide
will rise sharply in coming decades due to global warming, and governments
are ill-prepared for the death and destruction such mega-blazes trail in
their wake, the UN warned Wednesday.

     Even the most ambitious efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions will
not prevent a dramatic surge in the frequency of extreme fire conditions, a
report commissioned by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded.

     "By the end of the century, the probability of wildfire events similar
to Australia's 2019-2020 Black Summer or the huge Arctic fires in 2020
occurring in a given year is likely to increase by 31-57 percent," it said.

     The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes, and
more extreme weather means stronger, hotter and drier winds to fan the
flames.

     Such wildfires are burning where they have always occurred, and are
flaring up in unexpected places such as drying peatlands and thawing
permafrost.

     "Fires are not good things," said co-author Peter, an expert in forest
fire management at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

     "The impacts on people -- socially, health-wise, psychologically -- are
phenomenal and long-term," he told journalists in a briefing.

     Large wildfires, which can rage uncontrolled for days or weeks, cause
respiratory and heart problems, especially for the elderly and very young.

     A recent study in The Lancet concluded that exposure to wildfire smoke
results, on average, in more than 30,000 deaths each year across 43 nations
for which data was available.

     Economic damages in the United States -- one of the few countries to
calculate such costs -- have varied between $71 to $348 billion (63 to 307
billion euros) in recent years, according to an assessment cited in the
report.

     - Zombie fires -

     Major blazes can also be devastating for wildlife, pushing some
endangered species closer to the brink of extinction.

     Nearly three billion mammals, reptiles, birds and frogs were killed or
harmed, for example, by Australia's devastating 2019-20 bushfires, scientists
have calculated.

     Wildfires are made worse by climate change.

     Heatwaves, drought conditions and reduced soil moisture amplified by
global warming have contributed to unprecedented fires in the western United
States, Australia and the Mediterranean basin just in the last three years.

     Even the Arctic -- previously all but immune to fires -- has seen a
dramatic increase in blazes, including so-called "zombie fires" that smoulder
underground throughout winter before bursting into flames anew.

     But wildfires also accelerate climate change, feeding a vicious cycle of
more fires and rising temperatures.

     Last year, forests going up in flames emitted more than 2.5 billion
tonnes of planet-warming CO2 in July and August alone, equivalent to India's
annual emissions from all sources, the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere
Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported.

     Compiled by 50 top experts, the report called for a rethink on how to
tackle the problem.

     "Current government responses to wildfires are often putting money in
the wrong places," investing in managing fires once they start rather than
prevention and risk reduction, said UN Environment chief Inger Andersen.

     "We have to minimise the risk of extreme wildfires by being prepared."