Heat, wind, drought:fires in Italy are increasingly virulent

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

The fire emergency repeats itself every year, in July there is the peak of attention, but then in winter there is not enough work on prevention.In Italy, after almost 160 thousand hectares of land were burned in 2021, an improvement was recorded in 2022 with "only" 68,510 hectares affected by fires, and the summer of 2023 also begins with a low risk level thanks to the abundant rains in recent months.Like every year, the race started in mid-June Aib campaign (forest firefighting) on ​​tasks, responsibilities and initiatives that the various bodies and administrations must undertake in the event of an emergency.But before the emergency, what was done in winter to prevent fires?According to many observers, not enough.“In Italy there is still a lot of focus on active fire fighting and not so much on prevention,” explains a Blue suitcase Luca Tonarelli, technical director of the Forest Fire Training Center of the Tuscany region.“The funding is there, but it is not always used appropriately:in the regional plans for forecasting, prevention and active fight against forest fires, the resources allocated for prevention are often used for the purchase of vehicles and equipment necessary in case of emergency, instead of for forestry and rural management".

In the report Italy in smoke, Legambiente denounces that "integrated and sectoral planning is still missing, together with the adoption of the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, without which making predictions is a lottery".There is also a problem of fragmentation between the various national and regional institutions, which makes coordination more difficult in times of emergency:currently the Civil Protection is responsible only for air and land vehicles, the firefighters are responsible for actively fighting fires, the forestry Carabinieri must map the areas affected by the fire and carry out the related investigations, the Regions are responsible for forest management .

“By monitoring the dryness index of the forest, this year we recorded the positive record since 1991,” says Tonarelli.“In this same period, last year we reached the negative record of the last 30 years, a sign of the climate changes underway, which involve extreme peaks in one direction and the other.Despite the low level of risk, this season also presents some critical issues:the vegetation grown thanks to the spring rains could quickly turn into fuel for the fire, if there was a prolonged period of heat without precipitation, while the firefighting structure risks losing operational capacity, given that it is currently closed.That's why we still want to create opportunities to do exercises and tests."

What is (not) done to prevent fires in Italy

During the winter, prevention should begin primarily with cleaning the woods, to reduce fine vegetation and brushwood, the so-called "fuel" that favors the spread of flames.“Territorial management and forest cleaning costs a lot and pays off in the long term,” explains a Blue suitcase Valentina Bacciu, CNR researcher affiliated with the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change.“It is difficult to monitor what regions do in terms of fire prevention, which brings together structural (such as plant fuel management) and non-structural (such as information, education and training) activities.The Regional Plans provide general information and are not expected to present the activities actually implemented, the amount of funds and how they were used".The new one fits into this framework National forestry strategy, published in 2022, which starts from the assumption that fires are a complex phenomenon that requires transversal policies.“The need is to integrate fire risk prevention into regional forestry planning”, continues Bacciu, “The aim is to guarantee coordinated actions for land management, overcoming regional fragmentation through shared objectives.But it is still early to evaluate its effectiveness."

The National Forestry Strategy allocates 420 million euros until 2032, of which 60 for the two-year period 2022-23:These funds are used to finance Forestry Policy Plans (PIF), to protect the forests in a certain geographical area.“PIFs are the real innovation in fire prevention,” says a Blue suitcase Giorgio Vacchiano, researcher in forest management and planning at the State University of Milan and member of the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology (SISEF).“The regional plans cover too vast a territory to be truly operational:BIPs, on the other hand, cover a smaller area and are linked to local fire prevention plans, which makes them more effective".

Second the National Forest Inventory, today a third of the Italian territory is covered by woods.Of these, two thirds fall within private properties.Doing the checks is not easy:these are almost always small fragmented lands, the owners have left or in some cases don't even know they own that property.Among the interventions that could be carried out is the so-called "prescribed fire":Rather than manually removing excess leaves and dead needles on the ground, you run a low, controlled flame to burn them.“It is a delicate intervention, to be carried out in the presence of specialized personnel during the winter, when the humidity level is high and the fire cannot escape,” explains Vacchiano.“This is a practice that is still little used in Italy:only some experiments are underway in limited territories".

Then there are preventive silviculture techniques, which consist of planting plant species that are more resistant to fires, preferring broad-leaved trees such as beech or chestnut, which are less flammable, to conifers such as pine and fir.All this through micro-interventions designed specifically to avoid altering the biodiversity of the ecosystem.Once again, however, it is a complex path, which is why it is rarely undertaken by administrations.Forest care also includes other interventions, such as the creation of fire avenues or thinning out which have the aim of blocking the path of the flames, particularly in the areas in contact with inhabited centres, around the most important roads or in strategic management points.

The role of climate change in the increase in fires

In 2022, there were 16,941 fires in the 45 countries monitored by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), 48% more than the previous year:an area the size of Montenegro was burned.This is noted by the Report on forest fires in Europe and the Mediterranean area published by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission:summer 2023, the report says, promises to be equally difficult.Although it is complicated to identify direct cause-effect links between extreme meteorological events and climate change, according to many experts, climate transformations have had and will increasingly have an impact on the spread of fire:average temperatures are higher, it rains less and less and heat waves and droughts are more frequent.We are seeing it in recent months in Canada.

The fires in Canada and the air pollution in the United States are an unmistakable message of the climate crisis

Of course, even without climate change, extreme weather events would still occur, given that there are various factors that contribute to causing them - including weather conditions, landscape, human impact and natural phenomena.But it is now well established that climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and intense, he states al Financial Times Peter Stott, climate attribution expert at the UK Met Office.

The Mediterranean overwhelmed by fires.The climate crisis and the importance of prevention

In this sense, fires are changing in recent years:their number is decreasing, but the average surface area covered by the fire is increasing.Even in our latitudes the so-called are occurring megafire, forest fires characterized by great virulence, with an extension exceeding one thousand hectares.This is demonstrated by the statistics of the Forestry Carabinieri and the bodies of the autonomous regions and provinces, who say that while between the end of the Seventies and 2000 the average surface area per fire decreased, from 2000 onwards it has increased, despite the fact that the resources allocated for firefighting services have grown .Why are fires so devastating?“The degree of danger of a fire depends above all on its propagation”, explains Valentina Bacciu.“If it is true that fires start mainly due to anthropogenic causes, the factors that influence the spread of fire are of three types:orographic, based on the physical conformation of the territory, meteorological and relating to the characteristics of the vegetation.Heat, wind and drought favor the spread of flames:high temperatures reduce the humidity of the vegetation, also in synergy with the wind, predisposing it to combustion.In this, climate change is playing an ever-increasing role."

Among other things, just as climate change favors fires, fires also contribute to climate change:fire releases carbon dioxide and destroys trees and vegetation, which are essential for producing oxygen and storing emissions in the air.Legambiente and SISEF have elaborated nine proposals to enhance fire prevention in a context of climate change:“The general context requires a rethinking of fire management strategies, shifting attention, efforts and commitments increasingly towards prevention, which must necessarily integrate short-term objectives with medium-long term ones to respond to the challenges climate and the need to increase our forest heritage especially in urban areas", we read in the document.

The regulatory framework on fires in Italy

To regulate fire matters, the law was promulgated in 2000 framework law 353, which gives a definition of forest fire and establishes that the regions approve the regional plans for forecasting, prevention and active fight against forest fires.Furthermore, the law obliges municipalities to register, through a special land register, the areas that have been affected by fire, on which restrictions are placed such as the ban on grazing, hunting and the ban on changing the intended use:the goal is to prevent speculation on burned land and discourage people from setting fires for economic gain.The problem is that many municipalities do not compile the land registry, either due to lack of will or lack of adequate technical tools, and thus the deterrent function is lost.

Following the tragic fire season of summer 2021, the legislation was updated by Legislative Decree 120 of 8 September 2021 (later converted into law 155/2021):it is established that the regional plans are updated annually, that the forestry carabinieri can replace the municipalities to make the perimeter of the areas affected by fire to be included in the land register, and more severe penalties are foreseen for some crimes of arson.Furthermore, the law codifies prescribed fire as a prevention measure and introduces the concept of "urban-rural interface fire", i.e. a fire that involves areas where the urban and rural systems meet, so as to be considered more at risk.

The law also provides for the creation of an ad hoc fund (established with the budget law 234/2021, art.1 paragraph 473), with an allocation of 40 million euros for 2022, 50 million for 2023 and 60 million for 2024 (of which 20 million for each of the years allocated to the regions).Another 150 million are allocated by PNRR within Mission 4 (“Protection of the territory and water resources”), to finance prevention activities and active fight against forest fires.They add to these 100 million euros for the years 2021 to 2023, which fall within the National strategy for the development of internal areas.In short, the resources are there, but most are still used for active firefighting or monitoring, rather than for land management and forest cleaning.

“We need a radical change in approach and response to the fire phenomenon”, he explained the national president of Legambiente, Stefano Ciafani.“In our country we never talk about forests and fires, except when the forests have turned to ash.Instead, we must talk about forests and, therefore, about fires even when the flames are not there.Prevention, in fact, means education for every age group, training, responsible involvement of communities.In short, the main tool for preventing and fighting fires is the creation of a link between local populations and the forest.Fires must be prevented through land management, the ecologically sustainable use of agro-forestry-pastoral resources, the promotion of ecosystem services that must be remunerated, to support and revitalize rural communities in inland and mountain areas in a renewed protection function territorial".

Preview image:Easter at Italian Wikinews., CC BY-SA 3.0, go Wikimedia Commons