PEATBURN: Advancing peatland fire modeling with novel information on subsurface fuel moisture from hydrological simulations and satellite observations

Peatlands are wetlands with a surface layer of organic carbon-rich soil (peat). Even though peatlands are naturally wet most of the time and thus not very prone to fire, droughts in peatlands can prepare the ground for severe wildfires. The interplay of flaming (dominantly biomass) and smoldering (dominantly peat) combustion makes peat fires very persistent. Drying as a result of climate change and human activity leads to more frequent, larger and more severe peatland fires. This will exacerbate global warming due to the instantaneous release of ‘legacy soil carbon’ that accumulated over millennia, and aggravate other adversities for the environment and humankind, such as respiratory diseases with the inhalation of noxious smoke and costs of extensive firefighting.

In this project, recent developments in large-scale modeling of peatland hydrology will be combined with emerging techniques from hydrological remote sensing to generate a dynamic peat moisture product of unprecedented quality. This novel information about subsurface fuel moisture conditions, which mainly control the susceptibility to smoldering combustion, will be used for the first time i) to improve fire danger rating systems used in fire management and ii) to reveal unique large-scale insights into links between peat moisture and peatland fires. The demonstration of the benefits of the new peat moisture information will represent a breakthrough in large-scale peatland fire modeling.