Anatoly I. Sukhinin1, Douglas J. McRae2, Brian James Stocks2, Susan G. Conard3, Wei Min Hao3, Amber J. Soja4,5, Donald R. Cahoon5, Jin Ji-Zhong2

1) V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk, 660036, Russian Federation. boss@ksc.krasn.ru

2) Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, 1219 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A 2E5, Canada. dmcrae@NRCan.gc.ca

3) US Forest Service, RMRS Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, MT 59808, USA. Wei Min Hao and Susan G. Conard, whao@fs.fed.us, SGConard@aol.com

4) National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, Virginia, USA 5) NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA. amber.j.soja@nasa.govIntroduction

Impacts of climate change on the areas burned by wildfires and its implications on carbon emissions in the boreal zone are globally

significant. Wildfires in Russia burn from 4 to 18 million ha annually depending on burning conditions. Russia contains two-thirds of the

world's boreal forest and peat lands, yet quantification of these fires is hampered by the lack of accurate historical fire data. Official Russian

wildfire records greatly under estimate burned areas. However, satellite data have become available for assessing area burned since 1994

when the NASA first established satellite downlinks in Siberia. Changing weather conditions have greatly increased the burned area, fire

severity, and emissions in this region in the last 15-20 years. We will present evidence of frequent catastrophic fires during this time period.

Cluster character of spatial mass fires distribution

The method for estimating catastrophic wildfire situation is being

developed in our investigations. The catastrophic wildfire situation

includes grouping spatial distributions of large and extra large fires

produced by the spatial clusters integrated by the common zone of

aerodynamic interaction of convective columns and atmospheric

pressure formations. Such situation can be characterized by the

grouping of catastrophic fires over an area of more than 400,000

km2 under a long duration of anticyclone with the drought class

more than 5 (extreme) preventing the atmospheric front passage,

while the burn area portion exceeds 10%. Smoke cover decreases

the visibility to be less than 200 m, which prevents the aviation

forest protection services from operation.

Figure 1. Annual burn area for the 1996-2009 fire seasons.

http://www.ruf.uni-freiburg.de/fireglobe/current/globalfire.htm.

Figure 8. Fire scars on the Transbaikal area in 1987 and 2003.

Massive fires occurred practically on the same region mainly in

spring and summer seasons.

Figure 11. Catastrophic fires occur red over the Transbaikal region in 2007, when the fire weather danger index (PV-1, Nesterov

or BUI) were 4 times higher than the average fire season index in the same region.

Catastrophic fires in Russia are responsible for large burned areas and are the main reasons for major changes in Russian forest (Figs. 1 and

2). The 2002 wildfire situation in the Yakutia Region was an example of a catastrophic regional-scale ecological disaster (Figs. 3 and 4). As a

result of high-intensity surface fires, high tree (primarily Larix sp.) mortality (up to 40%) occurred in an area >50,000 km2 (Fig. 3). This area

between the Lena and Viliuy River did not have any precipitation during the entire 2002 fire season. Mass wildfires occupied a total area of

>700,000 km2. Cloud cover observed from a satellite image (Fig. 4) taken during the fire season was a classical example of the development

of stable high-pressure ridges associated with no-precipitation conditions.

Figure 7. Catastrophic fire polygon clusters for 1998 (brown), 2003 (blue)

and 2006 (red) .

2007

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

1 16 31 46 61 76 91 106 121 136 151 166 181 196

Номер дня

ПВ-1

2007

Fire Danger Index Season Dynamics in Central Siberia

(Boguchany, Krasnoyarsk region, 1996 and 2003 years,

red curve – FDI-2003, green curve – FDI-1996, blue –

precipitations, mm)

Динамика пожарной опасности

Богучаны, 2003 г.

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

12.5

.03

17.5

.03

22.5

.03

27.5

.03

1.6

.03

6.6

.03

11.6

.03

16.6

.03

21.6

.03

26.6

.03

1.7

.03

6.7

.03

11.7

.03

16.7

.03

21.7

.03

26.7

.03

31.7

.03

5.8

.03

10.8

.03

15.8

.03

20.8

.03

25.8

.03

30.8

.03

4.9

.03

9.9

.03

Дата

По

казател

ь П

О, ед

.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Осадки

, м

м

Осадки, мм

Показатель ПО, ед.

Показатель ПО 1996 г.

Figure 4. Cloud fronts cannot cross mass fire areas in the Yakutia Region

in 2002. Circulation in smoke column (right vortex-current) counters the

circulation of cloud mass.

Figure 3. Fire polygons showing the burned areas across Siberia and the

Russian Far East. Note a large area burned in Yakutia (red circle) over

1,000 km wide. The insert shows a satellite images (NOAA-16) taken a

year after the fires, showing the severity of the 2002 fires.

Figure 5. Vertical profiles of air temperature and dew point obtained using

ATOVS data showed that air over mass fires in2003 in the Baikal Lake territory

is very dry (humidity less than 20%). There was no precipitation from April to

July 2003. Daily humidity in Chita region was down to 10% in July .

Figure 6. Blocking anticyclone over mass fires in Khanty -Mansy oblast in

August 07, 2005.

Catastrophic Fires in Russian Forests

Anticyclone circulation

Сибирь, площадь

0,00

2000,00

4000,00

6000,00

8000,00

10000,00

12000,00

14000,00

16000,00

18000,00

20000,00

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Пл

ощ

ад

ь, ты

с. га

Площадь

4623.74*exp(0.083x)

R2=0.60

a) b)

c) d)

1200 km

Figure 9. Smoke aerosol depth propagated from Baikal Lake to Japan on 15

May, 2003, .

Сибирь, количество

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Ко

ли

честв

о

Количество

4626.19*exp(0.132x)

R2=0.87

Figure 2. Annual number of fires for the 1996-2009 fire seasons.

Conclusion

The Asian part of Russia is experiencing an increasing number of catastrophic fires. This fires affect

huge areas, and their increase is likely related in part to global climate change. The problems of

prevention and suppression of large and catastrophic fires in Russia are often more organizational in

terms of the fire management agency (e.g., financial), rather than technical knowledge. It will be

necessary to strengthen early fire detection and to increase suppression efforts to extinguish fires while

they are still small. Tactics for the use of burn-out operations should be considered. It is also important to

develop a national fire danger system for estimating fire danger based on the application of remote-

sensing weather. A procedure for estimating fire impact (i.e., economic, social and ecological) caused by

a wildfire is needed which would allow for better fire and forest management decisions.

Figure 10. (a) smoke plumes near the Viluy River taken from NOAA-7 on

30 July, 1984; (b) aerosol index distribution taken from Nimbus – 7

satellite; (c) satellite image taken from Russian satellite “Resours-O”

22.08.1985 showing the burned areas after catastrophic fires; and (d)

Canadian Fire Weather Index of the same date.