Greece: Fire breaks out on Euroferry Olympia
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The staggering UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) report said these natural disasters could soar by up to 50 percent. The report claimed the dramatic increase in wildfires is partially due to global warming. Worryingly, it also warned governments may not be able to cope as they are currently unprepared, urging them to ramp up spending to help prevent them. The ‘Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires’ report put forward a ‘Fire Ready Formula’ to help put this into practice.
It involves devoting two-thirds of spending to planning, prevention, preparedness and recovery.
Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, said: “Current government responses to wildfires are often putting money in the wrong place.
“Those emergency service workers and firefighters on the frontlines who are risking their lives to fight forest wildfires need to be supported.
“We have to minimize the risk of extreme wildfires by being better prepared: invest more in fire risk reduction, work with local communities, and strengthen global commitment to fight climate change.”
These terrifying blazes are made worse by the impacts of climate change like increased drought and higher air temperatures.
But the UNEP’s recent report on wildfires said not all hope is lost.
It read: “We must work with nature, communities, harness local knowledge, and invest money and political capital in reducing the likelihood of wildfires starting in the first place and the risk of damage and loss that comes when they do.”
Back in January, a massive wildfire dubbed the Colorado Fire, scorched about 1,500 acres (607 ha) of land along the Big Sur Pacific coast in the US.
It shut the California highway and prompted 13 agencies from around the state’s central coast to be deployed to tackle the blaze.
The National Weather Service (NWS) called it a “surreal fire behaviour given the wet October and December”.
But this huge blaze in this area was not unique.
It came after record-breaking temperatures in the US last year sparked a series of major wildfires.
Dr Susan Prichard, from the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, said: “We now have the conflagrations in California that we feared, following the record-setting heatwaves.
“Given that California wildfires have burned all the way into November in recent years, I’m afraid that we might be set up for another record-breaking fire season.”
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And the US was not the only victim of wildfires last year.
Even in the freezing depths of Siberia, wildfires ravaged the landscape, along with blazes in the eastern and central Mediterranean, as well as North Africa.
The UNEP report warned that wildfires have been “growing in intensity and spreading in range” across the globe.
It stressed the blazes have been “wreaking havoc on the environment, wildlife, human health, and infrastructure”.
The planet has warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began.
A UN report drawn up last year signalled a “code red” for humanity, urging urgent action to limit temperatures from rising or else it would risk environmental catastrophe.
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