Forest fire incidents in south, central India, Himalayas to rise significantly, finds IIT Delhi study

New Delhi: A recent study of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Delhi) has found forest fires in central and south India and Himalayan region will see significant rise in fire weather index (FWI) by the end of the century.

The study found that the rise in incidence of fires in these areas is a result of human activity. It added that human activity is causing the earth’s climate to change in unprecedented ways. The study was authored by Anasuya Barik, a PhD student, and Somnath Baidya Roy, a professor, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences of IIT Delhi.

“Atmospheric temperatures are rising rapidly and will continue to rise in the future. These warming temperatures will increase the fire weather danger in many Indian forests,” the IIT Delhi study added.

To calculate FWI for forest regions in India, the researchers developed a very high-resolution data set of future climate projections. The data collected using the method showed that forests in Central and South India and the Himalayan region will see significant increases in FWI by the end of the century. The fire season in these regions will also increase by 12-61 days, it added.

The study was published in Communications Earth and Environment, a journal of the Nature Springer group. The study can be assessed online at nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01112-w.

Humidity to rise in Western Ghats

The findings of the study align well with the conventional wisdom that higher temperatures increase forest fire hazard. Interestingly, the study showed that not to be the case in all forests. Humid tropical forests in the Western Ghats and parts of the North-East, where rainfall and humidity are projected to rise, will experience lower FWI despite the warming.

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Somnath Baidya Roy said, “We must study forest fires in India at a high degree of granularity to properly represent the diversity in climate and forest types across the country. Course resolution global scale studies simply don’t work for us.”

Anasuya Barik said, “Our study is the first of its kind in India and has significant implications for understanding and managing forest fires. Our study shows that we need to develop fire danger thresholds and management policies at local levels instead of national levels.”