Yeah africa australia the americas even parts of the arctic from the looks of this map the world is on fire hi im femi oke a urine stream this is a look at all of the global wildfires burning this year and today we chat with a panel of experts about the rise of these fires and the efforts to prevent them the show and join our conversation you can tweet us at a. J. Stream or leave your comments in our life you tube chad as you could be in the st. Louis Philippe Miller news i prefer sort of the food really diverse it is by your very very true to folks for there was a we were. Across the globe wildfires are raging at record levels the cause Scientists Say is the Global Climate crisis but how is the Climate Crisis contributing to these fires and how do we handle them once they start well joining us to discuss this in scotland Glen Mcdonald hes a geography professor at the university of california los angeles and an expert on the environmental consequences of Climate Change and connecticut carla staver shes a professor at Yale University who studies focus on the ecology of savannah and forest systems and here in the studio at meals and hes a scientist at Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center where he studies fire trends across the globe welcome everyone. Its good to have you im going to throw out that map again its from Global Forest watch its almost all of the y. Files are happening right now if we have a look at this and and and contemplate it it looks quite scary but are we going in a trend where were seeing more wildfires happening around the world. I think you have to you know you have to be careful with that you know there are areas where we certainly are. Western United States australia southern australia parts of the amazon there are others theres actually been a decrease in wildfire because weve cleared the land weve cleared the forest so we put it into. Land so its a net aggregate neil might want to comment on this theres actually been a kind of a global decrease in fire but thats not true for every place some places like western United States fire has ramped up this century and its fred thank you so much yeah and theyve actually what we see is that particularly in savanna ecosystems where where actually most of central wildfires occur set receipt is really strong the client and wildfires of other 2525 percent annual variant area loss over just 20 years and it is really because if you think of a savannah fire its its only burning through the grass layer its not a very intense fire and if you start to fragment a landscape for example you turn turn it into crop plants or you start crazing it or do you start to build roads you see actually that those fires const bred to the way they used to be able to spread so because of that we see those fires are actually very very fit to be disappearing from those ecosystems and yet come back and i can jump in there and i think an important piece of context for thinking especially about this that and. Is the fact that there are a lot of ecosystems on earth but burned historically even before people started burning and so we tend to think a lot about how humans are implicated in wild fires but systems like savannah were burning before people ever got there and thats also true of systems like mediterranean type chaparral in california these are naturally fire prone ecosystems and so certainly humans can have the impact of increasing fire activity but in some of these places where fires are. A natural part of their ecology. Player actually has decreased their human activity. So we mention the savannah and for not americans were not necessarily talking about the south of the u. S. Were talking about in some parts the continent of africa so i want to bring our attention to this tweet we got from francisco who says recent wildfires have focused attention on the amazon rain forest in brazil but western africa is another major trouble spot ivory coast has lost 80 percent of its foreigners so over the past 50 years and gone trees have been chopped down across an area the size of new jersey and he goes on to show this share this picture thats from originally from the Washington Post i want to give this one to you because he mentions these facts here but are they cause for concern or is this part of a cycle thats natural. Im so we actually this is actually a question that we have worked on in my group so it in certainly in west africa that that this because apparently accurate so somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of course thats been lost theres not a lot of wet forests left then with africa thats not true in Central Africa and so there is actually the congo rain forest is not entirely but relatively intact compared to some other forests. But when were talking about deportation with africa were not talking about a natural growth thats right thats about is intensive human modification of about ecosystem and thats that theyre right on i guess its important to explain that. During the de forestation prose as fire is very widely used so thats both in the amazon but also in this in africa for example what happens often is so that the forests are cleared and then theres a lot of material that people just simply want to get rid of before it can use the rain for agriculture for so on so fire is very widely used during that so these are not natural fires those are manmade fires and its very important to separate those from the natural fires that may burn just a few could moments is further down the road in western africa for example in 72 systems. What do you want to add to hit. Ive got pictures here that you showed us and you talked about weston california bang and the west coast of the u. S. Being one of the as weve seen an increase and wildfire as im going to show these pictures you can just talk us through what a you are in relation to these pictures. First i want to say that my son took those pictures and theyre oh its mcdonald theyre very close to our home and and this is becoming a i and you will deja vu deja vu last year you know about this time of year we were evacuated from our house because it was in danger of burning down this year we have 2 or 3 fires that have sparked up close enough to see them with this kind of you know a terrible beauty in a sense and all of a sudden you know california is considered paradise but all of a sudden people who are living in suburbs are living on the edge theyre wondering well is this fall this early winter going to be the winner 10 years ago that was in the case but weve see an inventor or a santa rosa up in reading these fires you know burning out of the exurban cringe right into the sort of suburban area series which you developed for instance in the ninetys and we would think you know just a normal suburb i was just bring it home and i have to show this picture hey this is from they want to rake and library in simi valley im just going to place play inside the lively look at the windows were just coming up to the windows here and this was threatened by wildfire just recently look out of the window as and there you can see you can see the smoke the haze you can see the fire have really actually outside the window is part of the problem and im just wondering are we just building in areas that are wild fire prone and we shouldnt really be living there anyway niels. Thats the. Thats a good point in california there are certain areas some of the canyons going over to malibu the center paula area the Santa Clara RiverVentura River corridor or area near paradise there theyre basically when channel in areas where we get these very high velocity strong winds in the fall and early winter and some of these areas now burn 2 or 3 times since the beginning of this century there are areas that because of their fuel and their local climate are just going to be dangerous and the Reagan Library sits right on the edge of one of those my house is really a stones throw away from that library. And god did you when you got your house you knew he was somewhere that was potentially very dangerous and that didnt change your mind about when you wanted to live and its beautiful that by the way here i want to tell you something when we would we moved into that area we did not think it was potentially dangerous we made sure that we bought a house far away from any of the sort of natural fire fuels chaparral or coastal sage cover grassland were in the middle of a kind of us suburban area we did not think when we purchased the houses many people didnt think well you know were not near those hills were not mixed in with the chaparral but the fact is these fires now are spreading into the urban in the suburban fabric and i think. You know one of the interesting things for example as is is if you just think about for example how people constructed phillipss and downs historically you know like if you think of south in europe where you have these small villages all the houses spec together and then the fields around there and then the forests that were kind of man its just a you know by the community you know you can see how historically people really took that into mind to notice. These processes and i think you know like theres definitely been i guess because of you know our capability to fight fires has improved so much you know there has been expansion of of urban areas into regions that where maybe we shouldnt have builds and now especially you know like since things are changing you know people really start to realize like wow yeah. So we were better at managing fire before than we all right now well i wouldnt i wouldnt say that but particularly for example in the western us really the nature of the fires has really changed im glad that you mentioned the historic view on this in part here are you trying to get in so give this to you i want to share a couple tweets from dr chris still cold and who who says saying people shouldnt live in these areas is not a real solution Indigenous People live to the fire in these places and so can we in the 21st century im not sure where the 10000000 plus people that live in fire prone areas would go and it fails to acknowledge vulnerable populations but she goes on to say this landscape was burned for centuries by the indigenous inhabitants to produce grass and brush and support cultural food some plants Indigenous People not only lived with fire they use it as a tool to survive and support their culture we have much to learn about this so carla whats your take on what we have to learn and what we seem to be doing wrong. Well and i think you know we sort of you opened the program talking about the incidence of wildfires globally we spoke a little bit about systems where theres less than a little bit about systems where theres more i think and the real point of concern is that theres this increase in the incidence of extreme fires which threaten human life lives and livelihood. And and so the question press of scientists is where the points of leverage in that system are right and so meals have sort of alluded to the idea we sort of you know i think a technical term would be a wildland urban interface so these areas that are really at the interface of flammable wild lands and then where people live as being particularly at risk areas and theres a lot of discussion around how we would manage those areas to be less vulnerable to these fire extremes but theres also a couple of other i think you know crystals tweaks i know crystals where i dont know crystal personally but i do know her i do know her work and shes talking shes referring to the idea that we can somehow manage fuels. To make fires less extreme so thats something that is somewhat controversial idea but has been around for a long time and its certainly a good option in some context and then the last thing that i think we should probably talk about more explicitly is the idea that Global Change so little warming is resulting in an increase in the incidence of weather that leads to extreme fires and so the world is hotter than it used to be and the fact that its hotter means. Fires have the ability to get much more extreme than they used to and so those are the 3 major sort of like where we build and how we and how we build. How we manage fuels and and finally Climate Change was this you know its a its a tough problem but those about major points of leverage that we think about us scientists when we think about how we are impacting fire regimes will really. Good im just yet you could eat a pheasant im just wondering how as different. Countries around the world we are managing this this Climate Change in times of the impact of the wildfires and those to my staff may connect if you go faster you know full well that was said im glad carla brought that up and if we take a look at the california western United States i mean theres no question that there is a clear relationship between Climate Change particularly over the last 2 decades or so and increased frequency of fires and increased acreage of fires and theres been a lot of analysis on this were seeing that those hotter conditions are creating basically during the summer very very dry air very low humidity very high temperatures which is exacerbating the fire behavior were also seeing that the fire season is getting longer our winters are getting shorter you know we have a longer autumn california which is dry and our spring dries out faster and so the fire season is lengthened and theres a relationship between those 2 things these temperatures and the length of the fire season and the increased burning were seeing in the west in california you can find the same thing in southern australia so theres theres a smoking gun here theres a fingerprint of Climate Change here and we cant we cant ignore that. And now i guess you know like the discussion is now really focused on the western u. S. So much which is rich is dreamy important of course but when we think about the more of the global picture you know for example. In the tropics the situation is so different i would think for example the most important. Effect on society and drought most of the tropics is pro the effect on air quality not so much like the direct threat. You know structures i think a good example is for example the Current Situation in delhi in india you know where where you have that situation where you know you already have an absolute polluted city and then in proximity you have all that agricultural burning and when that does blooms come over. Thats really makes and makes the situation unlivable basically so its really i think like globally is really such a. Yeah different situation basically so i think that another neils raises a really important point about the sort of these air quality issues in the tropics. So another. The amazon fires i think there were some really i one of the reasons that we started paying so much attention is that there were some really impactful photos of sao paolo in the middle of the amazon fires happening and just air quality and the quantities of smaug that were coming off with the forestation fires which was really a press of the other really mind blowing stats from from the indonesia people so that indonesian people forest fires from 2015 generated so much smoke that theyre estimated to have there was a study came out that suggests that they are estimated to have shortened the life spans of over 100000 people and so were really not talking about. Were not talking about mild impact on air quality it really is i mean i actually personally i think it can also be the case in california as well im not from out west but i was in oregon a couple of years ago when there were some fires burning in the vicinity and you could feel it right it really impacts it really impacts your ability to go outside and to breach. Right yeah and you know because the interesting thing for example about the 4 station fires feeling is that its its its a human driven process. So. We may have more control of things as well because its human driven and as were talking about global wildfires here within a Global Community i want to bring up this comment we just got live on you tube from elizabeth who says what can we do individually and what can mean make our governments do to cut down on the number of fires like these so keep that in mind dont answer yet because i want to bring in a video commenter who gives an idea of what could be done to mitigate a few of these fires this is Craig Clemons the director of Fire Weather Research laboratory in california and heres what he told the story i think theres a number of things that can be done to help mitigate the risk of wildfire throughout the world one thing is limiting development in areas where world powers occur. We have lots of expansion into the wild land in the forests and such so limiting Development Housing in these areas would be a good way to mitigate risk another way to mitigate part wildland fire risk is to remove the fuels especially around urban areas and the neighborhoods that are at risk another thing thats more important in what weve seen in the western u. S. Is improving power utility infrastructure for example that could limit ignition by down power lines so improving the infrastructure of utilities is important. Well ill pass that went on to you because he mentioned several important things there what stuck out to us most important though i think one of the things thats really important in Understanding California is that we have just the right weather to have big fires in the autumn we have the strong gavel and sent ana winds weve had a long summer of drawing and then we have a lot of people who are ignition sources 97 percent to 99 percent of the fires wildland fires in california are human ignited right and the problem is and were not in fires in Natural Force and in most effective systems but the problem is that with for instance power lines they tend to fail when we have the highest winds and the greatest potential to spread the fire and so trying to get out at these you know our