![]() For example, in the USA, only 0.4% of wildfires, whether ignited by lightning or humans, are allowed to burn. Although fire management is now slowly changing, with prescribed burning also being increasingly used, policies of aggressive wildfire suppression still apply almost everywhere. This 100% fire exclusion police has long proven to be impractical, unsustainable and ecologically detrimental in fire-prone regions. ![]() In these countries, current policies and social perceptions share a common starting point: the German forestry school of the nineteenth century, which spread the systematic protection of forests against fire across the Old Continent and former colonies. We also highlight that our scientific knowledge and social perceptions are Western biased because most available data are derived from Western societies in fire-prone countries such as the USA, Australia and Mediterranean Europe. In this paper, we discuss widely held perceptions of fire and compare them with fire data and statistics available to date. The ‘command and control’ attitude of most Western societies neglects the fundamental role that fire has in sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem health. Yet, over the past couple of centuries the traditional European perception of fire has been implemented in many parts of the world ( box 1), and fire in the landscape (commonly termed wildfire, wildland fire or landscape fire) has been typically considered as ‘bad’ and our focus on the whole has been on eliminating or at least containing it. Whether as open biomass burning or as the relatively recent practice of combusting fossil fuels in engines and power stations, fire has been a key factor in the rise of human societies. In fire-prone ecosystems, humans have always coexisted with fire in the landscape, and its use can be seen as the first anthropogenic tool that has affected ecosystem dynamics beyond the very local scale. This article is part of themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.įire has been an important factor in the dynamics of the Earth's climate and in the development of biomes since its widespread occurrence began 400–350 million years ago (Ma). The data evaluation presented here aims to contribute to this by reducing misconceptions and facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire. Global predictions for increased fire under a warming climate highlight the already urgent need for a more sustainable coexistence with fire. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. ![]() However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. ![]() Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth's surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. ![]()
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