Presented by Rosa Roman-Cuesta, Hety Herawati, Victoria Ramenzoni at 'Understanding the role of climate in Indonesian fires, to better support fire management interventions' workshop, Jakarta, 25th July 2019

1. Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta (R.Roman-Cuesta@cgiar.org)
Assessing the role of climate in
Indonesian fires, to better support Fire
Management Interventions
Jakarta, 25th July 2019
Rosa Roman-Cuesta, Hety Herawati, Victoria Ramenzoni
r.roman-cuesta@cgiar.org

2. Andela et al. (2017) Science
FIRE IN THE TROPICS: Understanding, foreseeing and acting on future fire risk in
tropical landscapes
(1998-2015)
(1998-2015)
Ethiopia
Indonesia
Colombia

3. National Mitigation Target for 2030: 29% reduction of GHG from BAU (unconditional) with
strong contribution from forest sector (FREL)  Forest and Peat fire prevention in fire-prone
provinces
Importance of Indonesian fires economic, ecologic and social impacts
Great diversity of fire policies and FMIs after 2015 fire season: assessing the
effectiveness of FMI in reducing fire
Original question: How effective are existing Fire Management Interventions in
reducing fire?
Policies
FMIs

4. Original question: How effective are existing Fire Management Interventions
in reducing fire?
X-FMI-TECHNICAL SOLUTION-2015
X-FMI-R&E-2016
X-FMI-INCENTIVE-2015
X-FMI-INSTITUTIONAL REFORM-2016
X-FMI-INCENTIVE-2017
X-FMI-TECHNICAL SOLUTION-2017
• Lack of geopositioned Fire Management Interventions
Aggregate FMIs at district level
• Aggregation problems: losing climate and land dynamics at district level

5. The role of climate as a mediator in Fire Management Interventions?

7. Some lessons from Californian fires 2018:
3.5 billion USD, 103 casualties, 8500 fires,
767K hectares burned

8. F
Fire Management Interventions in the Californian borders and policy implications
Minnich vs Kelly
Southern-North California (US)
Northern-South California (Mexico)
Minnich (2001) Conservation Biology
Low intensity high frequency fires
High intensity low frequency fires
FIRE SUPPRESSION----->
Higher fuel accumulation raises fire danger
Chaparral patch mosaic (time since fire)

9. F
Fire Management Interventions in the Californian borders and policy implications
Southern-North California (US)
Northern-South California (Mexico)
Santa Ana winds
Minnich vs Kelly
Low intensity high frequency fires
High intensity low frequency fires
WIND----> Drought + Humidity --------
------- > WEATHER drives fire severity.
Fuel accumulation plays no role.
FIRE SUPPRESSION-----> has not resulted
in FIRE EXCLUSION
More people on the region has risen fire
risk
Kelly (2001) Conservation Biology

10. F
Fire Management Interventions in the Californian borders and policy implications
Minnich vs Kelly
Minnich (2001) Conservation Biology
Santa Ana winds
Fire suppression----- > Fuel accumulation
BIG FIRE EVENTS
Hazardous Weather (Wind, Humidity, Temperature)
+
People (ignitions)
BIG FIRE EVENTS
FIRE EXCLUSION—fire banning
PRESCRIBED BURNING— increasing fire

11. F
Implications of ‘the Minnich vs Kelly hypotheses’
for Indonesia
• Policy selection (prescribed burning vs fire exclusion) has large consequences on
BUDGET ALOCATION.
• Weather can over-ride fire management interventions (e.g. prescribed burning)
and waste large budgets and capacity building efforts.
• Human presence (ignition) plays a major role in changing fire patterns.
• The scalability of ecological conclusions is dangerous: FMI are tailored to local
land dynamics.

12. Goals of the workshop
1. To share some advances/receive feedback of our on-going research on
climate-fire reactivity in Indonesia
2. To offer an overview of fire situation (statistics and GHGs)
3. To present a list of FMIs and policy context and to receive feedback from the
participants on missing FMIs in our database
4. To receive feedback from the audience on most effective FMIs in climate
reactive areas: potentials and opportunities (SWOT)

13. Fire trends in Indonesia: climate and land cover dynamics

14. Fire regimes vs Fire trends
The importance of scale to improve FMI
effectiveness to reduce fire
30 rule (30km wind,
30 degrees temperature,
<30% humidity)
Sources
Fire regimes
 Frequency
 Intensity
 Severity
 Size
 Season
 Pattern
Fire risk Fire danger
Humans, lightnings
Fire regime

15. Source: David Gaveau

17. ENSO
ENSO
IOD +
IOD + ENSO
ENSO

18. Jolly et al. (2015) Nature Comm.

22. Burned area-Precipitation anomaly

25. Burned area-Temperature anomaly

27. Areas of high climate reactivity --FMI based on fire exclusion
Areas of lower climate reactivity- FMIs based on prevention

28. Questions, comments, suggestions?

31. Fire trends (2001-2016)