City fires are likely to increase with climate change, modeling study warns

It is expected that some types of fires in cities will increase as a result of climate change in the coming decades, according to the study of modeling formulation. Published in Nature cities. Results are based on data of 2,847 cities in 20 countries and can be beneficial for urban planning strategies and response to future emergencies.

Fires around the world cause an estimated 50,000 deaths and 170,000 injuries each year. However, the future trends of fire frequency in urban environments are unconfirmed, although they often cause more human victims and economic damage more than some other types of fires, such as forest fires. This lack of understanding of the management of regional fire resources and urban planning.

Researchers and colleagues have collected data from urban firefighting departments in 2,847 cities in 20 countries-including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and China-to create a global database of the city’s firefighting accidents in the period 2011-2020. The authors then identified the changes in the frequency of different types of fire accidents in urban areas, including burning cities, vehicles and external areas (such as landfill sites), in response to the warming climate.

Using this historical data collection, the authors assess the potential effect of global warming on the frequency of different types of urban fires, based on different international climate scenarios on climate change (IPCC).

Xi and his colleagues expected that by 2100, there may be 11.6 % in vehicle fires and an increase of 22.2 % in external fires, but a decrease of 4.6 % in construction fires, with high greenhouse gas emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5). They also reach a total of 335,000 fire -related deaths and 1.1 million fire -related injuries between 2020 and 2100, which is due to the phenomenon of global warming, in all cities in this study.

The authors argue that the results can serve as a basis for developing new fire control strategies, such as improving fire fuel management. However, they notice that their analysis does not contain data from Africa and South America, and that the results of vehicle fires may not reflect modern transformations to electric cars.