Climate change is not only impacting the size
and intensity of wildfires,
but also their frequency in some regions.
NASA has over 22 years of daily fire data to track wildfire trends.
This is important to get a sense of how fire regimes, the historical
frequency of wildfires in a region, are changing over time.
Understanding an ecosystem’s fire regime is important, because in many instances
wildfire is essential to maintain a mixture of younger and older vegetation.
However, when fires occur too frequently or with increased severity,
it can have devastating effects - like destroying habitat,
changing soil chemistry, and clogging waterways,
not to mention releasing greenhouse gases like CO2 and aerosols into the atmosphere.
NASA can study wildfires’ impact on the landscape by measuring burn scars,
as well as tracking vegetation loss and rate of regrowth.
Having an accurate assessment of a landscape post-fire is a key
part of understanding how ecosystems recover over time.
NASA's ability
to not only track wildfires, but also the conditions that lead to them
is essential to our ability to mitigate their impacts.
We're working with land managers and those on the front lines
to give them the tools, including near real-time data, to help them
make decisions to minimize the risks and plan for the future.