Holdover fire

In wildfires, a holdover fire, zombie fire or overwintering fire is a peat fire which persists from year to year.

Fires[edit]

Such fires typically occur in Arctic tundra, smouldering during the winter under the snow and then becoming more intense during the summer.

A study conducted 2002–2018 in Alaska and the Northwest Territories found that this type of fire burned only 0.8% of the total area burned by all types of fires and that this type of fire caused only 0.5% of the total carbon emissions released by all types of fires.^[1]

During the summer of 2019, such fires were estimated to have generated 173 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂),^[2] with an estimate of 244 million tonnes from January to August 2019.^[3] The smoke and soot from such fires darkens the region, so contributing to further warming and further fires.^[4] The loss of peat is also a loss of a store for CO₂.^[3] Images from satellites such as Sentinel-2 have been used to identify such hot spots.^[5]

References[edit]

^ Kann, Drew (19 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' are already smoldering in the Arctic. They could become more common as the planet warms". CNN. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
^ "The fires within the deep – Have Siberian fires been smouldering underground all winter?", The Economist, 6 June 2020
^ ^a ^b Harrabin, Roger (3 September 2020). "Zombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions". BBC News.
^ Wheeling, Kate (30 June 2020), "The rise of zombie fires", Eos, 101 (101), doi:10.1029/2020EO146119
^ Rebecca Scholten; Sander Veraverbeke (2020), "Spatiotemporal patterns of overwintering fire in Alaska" (PDF), Fire Science Highlight, Alaska Fire Science Consortium

External links[edit]

Media related to Holdover fire at Wikimedia Commons

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