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Each winter, as snow blankets Alaska and northern Canada, the wildfires of the summer extinguish, and calm prevails at least on the surface. Beneath all that white serenity, some of those fires actually continue smoldering underground, chewing through carbon-rich peat, biding their time. When spring arrives and the chilly landscape defrosts, these “overwintering” fires pop up from below that’s why scientists call them zombie fires.
Now, a new analysis in the journal
Nature quantifies their extent for the first time, and shows what conditions are most likely to make the fires reanimate. Using satellite data and reports from the ground, researchers developed an algorithm that could detect where over a decade s worth of fires dozens in total burned in Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories, snowed over, and ignited again in the spring. Basically, they correlated burn scars with nearby areas where a new fi
Nature, an international research team reveals how it used a complex computer algorithm to spot the zombie fires that have risen from their peat-filled grave, so to speak, in satellite imagery.
What Are Zombie Fires?
Zombie fires, also known as overwintering or holdover fires, are different than the flaming fires that have devastated California and Australia in recent years.
Packed deep within carbon-rich soils and insulated by feet of snow, zombie fires can smolder for months, long after firefighters have extinguished the surface flames. As the snow melts and the soil begins to dry out, flames can reignite on the surface and spark larger blazes. This poses a problem not only for people and property, but for the climate, too.
Posted: May 19, 2021 1:36 PM ET | Last Updated: May 19
A specialist sprays water while extinguishing a forest fire in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, Russia in August 2020. Zombie fires fires that smoulder underground through the winter and rise from the earth in the spring were blamed for some of the extreme fires in Russia last year.(Russia s Aerial Forest Protection Service/REUTERS)
Zombie Fires Are a Strange, Rare Phenomenon That Is Threatening the Environment Jennifer Leman
Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can identify zombie fires that smolder in Arctic, carbon-rich peat soils.
Zombies fires (also known as overwintering or holdover fires) that burn through peat-laden soil can release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Understanding the conditions that lead to these fires can help fire managers target resources at the beginning of the fire season.
The searing summer heat that fuels piping-hot wildfires in northern boreal forests may be the mystery cause of a strange, rare phenomenon: zombie fires. These undead blazes smolder deep underground in carbon-rich peat soils, and then reignite months later.
Well there are Zombie Fires in the arctic yup that s a thing boxden.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from boxden.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.