Wildfires

In Sweden the rescue services responds toon average 5000 annual incidents of wildfires. Most of these are small and during the last 200 years the annual burnt area have decreased by about 99 %. However, societal and climatic trends indicate that complicated incidents are becoming more frequent in the near future.

The research at RISE focuses on risk and danger models for the spread and ignition of wildfires, on ignition of structures from wildfires and on the preparedness and response to large wildfire incidents.

News

Some new reports in Swedish:

Satellite detection in Sweden 2023 (funded and published by MSB). VIIRS performance sufficient but have room for tuning the algoritms
The future wildfire risk is in our hands. Popular science article in Brandsäkert about coping with an increasing wildfire danger

Grassland fires in northern regions (or cold regions like Canada, Fennoscandia, Russia, Eastern Europe) account for the majority of fires during spring and a fire danger model is published in International Journal of Wildland Fire.

160 years development of Forest Fire Danger has been studied on nine locations throughout Sweden. The study, financed by MSB, shows that fire danger increases on all studied locations and that reduced noon-time relative humidity and increased noon-time temperatures drive the increase of danger indices. The report (in Swedish) can be accessed here .

Humans drive the Swedish regime, not only through ignitions. A study on over 100 000 Swedish fire incidents can be found here, published 2023 by Fire Safety Journal.

Intensity and spread rates for Swedish forests are summarized in a short paper which will be presented at the IX International Conference on Forest Fire Research, Coimbra (November, 2022).

Tactics and wildfire perception of Swedish incident commanders is studied and a short paper will be presented at the IX ICFFR 2022. Read also longer version in IJWF.

Popular scientific radio shows on Swedish wildfires.

Vetenskapsradion på djupet talks with RISE researchers about historic and contemporary wildfire regimes in Sweden compared to other parts of the world
Beredskap, a podcast on preparedness from Swedish Radio invites RISE researchers to discuss how to prepare your home for wildfires
Wildfires started by children playing with fire, has declined dramatically since the late 90s. Short news story on Swedish radio

Garden structure is critical for building survival in Swedish forest fires. New publication in Safety Science describes that a managed lawn, deciduous trees around the garden and little fuel against the facade are the most important factor for buildings to survive Swedish forest fires.

New fuel models for Swedish forest landscapes. RISE and SLU have mapped fuel structure and composition in Sweden. There is a Swedish report here and fuel models to download to the right.

Overview of wildfires in Sweden. RISE and SLU have assessed recent trends and patterns of wildfires during recent decades in a report published 2020, on behalf of the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency (MSB). The large incidents recent years are not only a consequence of exceptional weather leading to high fire danger but also societal trends in the response to fires, resource distribution, land use practices and strategies.

New grassfire warning model for Sweden. RISE has, together with SMHI and SLU developped a fire danger model for grassfire during spring in Sweden. See maps of current fire danger and our report.

RISE and the Mid University of Sweden studied the inclusion of different types of volunteers in the response to the 2014 Västmanland fire

Forestry machinery have initiated a number of the high impact fires in Sweden during recent decades even though they account for only a fraction of all wildfires. The characteristic of these type of fires are analysed and can be found here: Swedish, English.

Projects

TREEADS. RISE Fire Research AS in Trondheim coordinates one of the largest wildfire projects ever launched in Europe, financed by the Commissions new Green Deal. For info, contact Ragni Mikalsen or Kemal Arsava

Landscape management in the WUI. Rise works with Mid Sweden University and SLU in Uppsala and Umeå to find barriers and solutions for management of the wildland Urban interface that will benefit communities in a changing climat. The project is funded by FORMAS.

FirEUrisk. RISE is the Swedish partner in the the FirEUrisk project aiming for a unified European response to an increasing fire hazard.

Frida Vermina Plathner has been rewarded a postdoc project from MSB concerning validation and mapping of fire behaviour models.