Summary: Three key interviews on new role of fire during global warming. John Betts on super fires and what we can do. Tom Gower on science of burning north lands. Marc-Andre Parisien on mega-fires in Canadian North. As forest fires rage across the Western half of North America, I've prepared a special show for your summer listening. Last week we heard 3 experts speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meet-up. This week I've pulled three of our best Radio Ecoshock interviews on the new age of super fires. And there's a super fire raging right now in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan. In the north is a fire burning over 100,000 hectares, about 250,000 acres of boreal forest. Our guest John Betts tells us about the new age of super fires, their causes and what communities and individuals can do to reduce the risk of unstoppable fires in the age of global warming. I think the unreported fires in the far north of Alaska, Canada, and Russia are a big deal. Those forests were once carbon store houses which now become an addition source of greenhouse gases. If the top of the world burns, vast quantities of once frozen life can also be turned into both carbon dioxide and methane. Everyone in the world needs to know about this story, where ever you may live. So we'll reach back to 2007, just a year after Radio Ecoshock began. In a short interview, Dr. Tom Gower talks about his research on fires in Northern Canada as a positive feedback loop in climate change. Then from September 2014, Marc-Andre Parisien from the Canadian Forest Service tells us about record mega-fires in the Canadian far north. By the way, there is a new paper published in July 2015 by the journal Nature showing that climate change is definitely creating conditions for an increase in wild fires - in many parts of the world. The paper is titled "Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013" and you can read the full text, with helpful graphic maps, here. The summary says: "Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use three daily global climate data sets and three fire danger indices to develop a simple annual metric of fire weather season length, and map spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. We also show a doubling (108.1% increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (1.0 s above the historical mean) and an increased global frequency of long fire weather seasons across 62.4?million?km2 (53.4%) during the second half of the study period. If these fire weather changes are coupled with ignition sources and available fuel, they could markedly impact global ecosystems, societies, economies and climate." I'm Alex Smith. Welcome to another hot summer on Radio Ecoshock. Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) Or listen on Soundcloud right now! JOHN BETTS: THE AGE OF SUPER FIRES Are we entering the age of super forest fires? Our guest is John Betts, Executive Director of the Western Silvicultural Contractors' Association in British Columbia, Canada. He's in the gorgeous lake-side town of Nelson British Columbia - right in the path of the dead pines forest fire threat. John Betts As a leader in an industry devoted to "managing" our forests, often by removing excess undergrowth, John advocates removing "fuel" from the forests before a disaster strikes. In years past, environmentalists have insisted such decay is natural and the woods should be left to their own devices. Now it's different. With global warming and warmer winters, the Rocky Mountain Pine Bark Beetle has killed off entire valleys of pine trees. They will eventually burn - and some surround communi
