// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did holdover fire say? It's a burning issue.
.jpg)
In wildfires, a holdover fire, or overwintering fire is a peat fire which persists from year to year. It is also sometimes called a "zombie fire".
Arctic tundra
[edit]Such fires typically occur in Arctic tundra, smouldering during the winter under the snow and then becoming more intense during the summer.
A study conducted from 2002–2018 in Alaska and the Northwest Territories found that this type of fire burned only 0.8% of the total area burned by all types of fires and that this type of fire caused only 0.5% of the total carbon emissions released by all types of fires.[1]
During the summer of 2019, such fires were estimated to have generated 173 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2),[2] with an estimate of 244 million tonnes from January to August 2019.[3] The smoke and soot from such fires darken the region, so contributing to further warming and further fires.[4] The loss of peat is also a loss of a store for CO2.[3] Images from satellites such as Sentinel-2 have been used to identify such hot spots.[5]
Other locations
[edit]The term holdover fire has also been used to describe underground, smoldering fires in other regions and biomes. In chaparral environments, deep woody taproots from plants like manzanita or chamise can smolder for extended period after the fire has been extinguished at the surface. This can create latent heat and sparks that can trigger new fires.[6] Such a scenario has been proposed to have triggered the 2025 Palisades fire, which may have started as a holdover fire from the earlier Lachman fire.[7] Smoldering buried debris has also been pointed to as the trigger of the 2023 Lahaina fire,[8] and the 1991 Tunnel Fire that killed 25 people in Oakland, California.[9]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Kann, Drew (19 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' are already smoldering in the Arctic. They could become more common as the planet warms". CNN. Archived from the original on 18 February 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
- ↑ "The fires within the deep – Have Siberian fires been smouldering underground all winter?", The Economist, 6 June 2020, archived from the original on 4 September 2020, retrieved 3 September 2020
- 1 2 Harrabin, Roger (3 September 2020). "Zombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions". BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 September 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
- ↑ Wheeling, Kate (30 June 2020), "The rise of zombie fires", Eos, 101 (101), doi:10.1029/2020EO146119
- ↑ Rebecca Scholten; Sander Veraverbeke (2020), "Spatiotemporal patterns of overwintering fire in Alaska" (PDF), Fire Science Highlight, Alaska Fire Science Consortium, archived (PDF) from the original on 2 October 2020, retrieved 3 September 2020
- ↑ Holdover Fires Fact Sheet (PDF) (Report). Los Angeles: Los Angeles Fire Department. 9 October 2025. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 November 2025. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
- ↑ Wait, Tom (8 October 2025). "How an underground fire turned into the Palisades Fire". CBS Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 14 November 2025. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
- ↑ Baker, Mike; Thrush, Glenn (3 October 2024). "Lahaina Inferno Emerged From Smoldering Remnants of Quelled Fire". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 October 2025. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
- ↑ "Oakland-Berkeley hills firestorm collection, 1991-1992". Oakland Public Library. 20 October 1991. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
Further reading
[edit]- Aylin Woodward (22 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' smolder under the snow during the winter then rise from the dead come spring. They may get far more common". Business Insider.
External links
[edit]
Media related to Holdover fire at Wikimedia Commons
| History | |
|---|---|
| Science | |
| Components | |
| Individual fires | |
| Crime | |
| People | |
| Culture | |
| Organizations | |
| Other | |
| Types | |
|---|---|
| Ecology and management | |
| Environmental topics |
|
| Industries | |
| Occupations | |
