Coordinating Efforts for Effective Wildland Fire Management

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently released report Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires, finds that climate change and land-use change are making wildfires worse and anticipates a global increase of extreme fires even in areas previously unaffected. Uncontrollable and extreme wildfires can be devastating to people, biodiversity and ecosystems. They also exacerbate climate change, contributing significant greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. The report estimates that the risk worldwide of highly devastating fires could increase by up to 57% by the end of the century.

According to a study that suggests extreme fire weather is being driven by a decrease in atmospheric humidity coupled with rising temperatures, the world’s eight most extreme wildfire weather years have occurred during the last decade.

“Extreme conditions drive the world’s fire activity,” said former University of Alberta wildfire expert Michael Flannigan, who conducted the research with study lead Piyush Jain, research scientist with Natural Resources Canada, and Sean Coogan, post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.

The UNEP report calls for governments to dramatically shift their approach to preventing, rather than only focusing on fighting, fires, which they said would be more effective.

The UN report recommends “two-thirds of spending in planning, prevention, preparedness and recovery, with one-third spent on response.”

The award-winning Working on Fire programme, funded through the government’s Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa is celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2023. As part of its celebrations, we are hosting a fire management symposium at the scenic Skukuza Conference Centre in the Kruger National Park.

This event is proudly being supported by the Forestry Department of the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). This Department of NMU is recognised for its excellence and has earned the respect of the wider fire community through their various education programmes as well as bi-annual symposiums.

The theme of the symposium is to foster greater collaboration, within and between states and is intended to provide a platform for greater collaboration on the African continent and international wildland fire forums.