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Title
  • en Active Forest Fire Occurrences in Severe Lightning Years in Alaska
Creator
Accessrights open access
Subject
  • Other en active fire
  • Other en hotspot
  • Other en lightning
  • Other en drought
  • Other en precipitation
  • NDC 510
Description
  • Abstract en Severe lightning flashes, 120,000 a year or four times more than in the average year, started around 300 fires in each of the three years of 2004, 2005, and 2007 but the burnt area of each year differed considerably. The burnt areas in 2004 and 2005 were the largest and the third largest in the last 55 years (1956-2010), respectively; the burnt area in 2007 was smaller than the average 3,541 km2. Overall, a comprehensive understanding of active forest fires in severe lightning years in Alaska was achieved based on various fire characteristics including the newly introduced “number of live fires” and “daily fire activity by hotspots” from NASA. These fire characteristics established the fact that severe lightning ignited Alaska's forests in June and July, and that most of the large fires in 2004 and 2005 started and lasted until August. Large numbers of live fires became active during drought and high-air-temperature conditions, which increased the burnt area in 2004. In 2005, continuous precipitation started from June but a large burnt area was also created by a very active forest fire period in August. The burnt area in 2007 was not so large due to continuous precipitation from the beginning of June.
Publisher en Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science
Date
    Issued2012
Language
  • eng
Resource Type journal article
Version Type VoR
Identifier HDL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/57919
Relation
  • isIdenticalTo DOI https://doi.org/10.2328/jnds.33.71
Journal
    • PISSN 0388-4090
      • en Journal of Natural Disaster Science
      • Volume Number33 Issue Number2 Page Start71 Page End84
File
    • fulltext 33_71.pdf
    • 845.91 KB (application/pdf)
      • Issued2012
Oaidate 2023-07-26