Research Database
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4
Drought triggers and sustains overnight fires in North America
Year: 2024
Overnight fires are emerging in North America with previously unknown drivers and implications. This notable phenomenon challenges the traditional understanding of the ‘active day, quiet night’ model of the diurnal fire cycle1,2,3 and current fire management practices4,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Warming weakens the night-time barrier to global fire
Year: 2022
Night-time provides a critical window for slowing or extinguishing fires owing to the lower temperature and the lower vapour pressure deficit (VPD). However, fire danger is most often assessed based on daytime conditions1,2, capturing what promotes fire spread rather than what impedes fire. Although it is well appreciated that changing daytime weather conditions are exacerbating fire, potential changes in night-time conditions—and their associated role as fire reducers—are less understood. Here we show that night-time fire intensity has increased, which is linked to hotter and drier nights.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Large wildfire driven increases in nighttime fire activity observed across CONUS from 2003–2020
Year: 2022
Despite the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of wildfires, little attention has been paid to the spatiotemporal patterns of nighttime fire activity across the conterminous United States (CONUS). Daytime fire radiative power (FRP) detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) was nearly evenly split (54% vs. 46%) between inside and outside wildfires from 2003 to 2020. In contrast, 94% of nighttime FRP was detected within wildfires, of which 95% was detected within large wildfires (> 2023 ha). Nighttime proportions (i.e., the proportion of total summed FRP…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Use of night vision goggles for aerial forest fire protection
Year: 2014
Night-time flight searches using night vision goggles have the potential to improve early aerial detection of forest fires, which could in turn improve suppression effectiveness and reduce costs. Two sets of flight trials explored this potential in an operational context. With a clear line of sight, fires could be seen from many kilometres away (on average 3584 m for controlled point sources and 6678 m for real fires). Observers needed to be nearer to identify a light as a potential source worthy of further investigation. The average discrimination distance, at which a source could be…
Publication Type: Journal Article