The Pantanal has a well-defined cycle of floods and dry periods marked by the occurrence of forest fires. Our objective was to evaluate how the presence of Lentibulariaceae in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), Brazil, was affected by the large forest fires that affected the Pantanal between 2020 and 2021. We compared data collected from this family with data from monitoring burned areas using the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Land Use and Land Cover classes from Collection 7 of MapBiomas using the QGis software. We gathered information from collections carried out from 1892 to date, totaling 200 records, of which 26.5% occurred in Grassland; 19% in Savanna Formation; 18.5% in River, Lake and Ocean; and 16.5% in Wetland. We observed that, compared to the year of the last collection record, 2016, the classes Wetland; Savanna Formation and River, Lake and Ocean showed a reduction in their areas, 31%, 62% and 33%, respectively, in 2021, while there was an increase of 38% in the area of Grassland. The reduction in these areas may be associated with the forest fires of 2020 and 2021, which consumed around 29,913 km2 of the Pantanal in MS, with these areas comprising 23.5% of Grassland; 9.8% from Savanna Formation; 1.8% River, Lake and Ocean; and 25.8%. from Wetland. Despite the resilience mentioned for Pantanal, fires, associated with the long periods of drought in 2020 and 2021, significantly reduced this taxon, given the changes that occurred in environments with a recognized presence.

In 2020, more than 3.9 million hectares were burned by vegetation fires in the Pantanal wetlands, in central-west Brazil, an area four times larger than the average over the 2001-2019 period. During the peak of the fire crisis (September 2020), transported smoke was observed in the southeast and south Brazil, including the São Paulo megacity, leading to dark sky and black rain episodes. In this context, we analyze the transport of the smoke plumes released by the mega-fires in the Pantanal in 2020 and the impacts on particulate matter concentrations in the state of São Paulo. Using multiple datasets from satellites, reanalyses, and in-situ air quality stations, besides simulations carried out using the EURAD-IM Chemistry Transport Model and the HYSPLIT trajectory model, two main periods of transport were identified. According to the simulations, the smoke plumes originated from the northern part of the Pantanal, traveled a distance of 1000 km from the biome to São Paulo state within three days, and persisted over the region for five days. The transport occurred through the low-level jet in central Brazil associated with a frontal system in the southern region of the country. High particulate matter concentrations that occurred in São Paulo were over 100% above WHO Air Quality Guidelines, resulting in low visibility below 5000 m. This work reinforces the importance of the Pantanal fires in disturbing air quality around the country, as already observed in the case of fires in the Amazon and Cerrado.

The creation of the Fire Museum, inspired by the Cerrado Biome, is the first in the country. From the perspective of Integrated Fire Management - MIF, it aims to strengthen socio-environmental processes for conservation purposes, addressing issues related to forest fires, prevention, combat and management, cultural and socioeconomic aspects of indigenous and traditional peoples, as well as such as the ecological impacts on the Cerrado after the fire has passed.
The Museum, as a non-profit institution, at the service of society and its development, open to the public, exposes material and immaterial testimonies of human beings and their interaction with the environment, through education, research, and communication, heritage conservation historical and cultural, tourist and economic, being able to generate resources not only for the municipality of Cavalcante but also to support the maintenance and sustainability of the BRIVAC Voluntary Environmental Brigade of Cavalcante, in the face of fire management actions in the territory. We believe that community engagement is done through social inclusion, which is why informing the population is the main tool to strengthen the community. Thus, the museum shares a rich theoretical and textual collection on the Cerrado, its relationship with fire, traditional peoples, forest fires and integrated fire management, indigenous equipment and artifacts, and an immersive room recreating the impacts experienced by the brigade members during the fighting forest fires.

Altered by the warmer and drier climate of recent decades, large and severe wildfires are increasing the dangerous in vulnerable areas such as the wildland-urban interface. Our study aims to characterize and identify WUI situations prone to high severity fires under different climatic conditions. We selected fourteen large wildfires (> 500 ha) occurred between 2016-2021 in the Spanish Iberian Peninsula along a Mediterranean-Transition-Atlantic climatic gradient, where we spatially defined the building density, pre-fire vegetation variables and burn severity in WUI areas. Pre-processed Sentinel-2 images at 20 m spatial resolution were used to (i) calculate the delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) spectral index, and (ii) to determine land cover class (LCC), vegetation cover fraction (FCOV) and homogeneity of the vegetation cover fraction (FCOV homogeneity), indicatives of fuel type, amount and structure. In each climatic condition, pre-fire vegetation variables in conjunction with building density were employed to identify WUI situations prone to high burn severity through linear models validated by 10-fold cross-validation and Tukey's multiple comparisons. Results showed that WUI area affected by high burn severity increased towards the Atlantic climatic conditions, where high fuel loads, especially in terms of arboreal vegetation, are present. In Transition sites, high FCOV values in dense clustered WUI indicated a dangerous scenario with very severe wildfires. However, isolated or scattered WUI situations associated with high shrub cover were significantly most prone to high dNBR values across the climatic gradient. These results provide operational pre-fire management keys for the identification of WUI areas susceptibility to severe fires.

Over the last years, catastrophic wildfires area increasingly occurring across the word, attracting substantial media and social attention. Public interest in wildfires is a key although poorly understood topic, as it not only drives policy decisions, but it can also influence fire impacts on society (e.g. via fire awareness and preparedness). We use here Google Trends, a tool that measures internet searches on Google, to evaluate the long-term (15 years) trends on public interest on wildfires both at global and country level. We analyse how that interest relates to specific fire seasons or catastrophic events and compare the public interest in wildfire with that for other natural hazards (droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes and storms). Lastly, we discuss how Google searches relates to public demand for news on the topic and what are the main issues the public look for when they search for fire-related information on the Web.

Forest fires constitute an important part of the global terrestrial system and the full extent of their impacts within the ecosystems still needs to be quantified. Wildfires’ analysis, which can be performed based on different information sources, deeply contributes to the improvement of prevention policies grounded on an improved perception of the fire regime. Naturally induced fires have been mostly studied at high latitudes, as there, lightning strikes significantly contribute to ignition. However, in the tropics and subtropics, studies focusing on natural ignitions are still lacking. This work aims to study the relationship between fires and lightning in the Brazilian Pantanal (2012-2017) and Portugal mainland territory (2003-2020) based on the spatial and temporal simultaneity of these two phenomena, using data derived from remote sensing techniques and data available in fire catalogs. Our results indicate that lightning is not the main cause of ignition in both regions. Namely, in the Pantanal only 5% of wildfires are caused by lightning. However, it has a strong contribution to the fire regime in the austral summer months. In Portugal, natural wildfires accounted for up to 3% of the total burned area per year in regular fire seasons, occurring between June and September months and reaching their peak in August. Still, the assessment of the contribution from small fires remains a challenge when using remote sensing datasets due to inherent limitations, resulting in low detection rates. Nevertheless, the use of active fires was still able to replicate the intra-annual variability of lighting-ignited wildfires in Portugal.

Summary
Communication of clear, objective, reliable and agreed messages on wildfires, is essential to ensure society involvement in their prevention.

The main objective of this work is the development of a framework document for general use and reference to support education, awareness and communication actions on wildfire prevention.

The methodology used is based in the direct participation of all possible stakeholders, through questionnaires, interviews and discussions. Wildfire and emergency managers, academia, researchers, environmental education experts, media, public and private companies representatives, public employees, rangers, students, and rural population, are among the different groups that have participated.

As expected result, a part from a rich database of stakeholders and information, there will be an agreed document to serve as a common basis at national level on wildfire awareness and education, considering the necessary adaptation to each territory reality.

Main conclusions are, on one hand, the need of society collaboration and implication in good practices and both individual and collective responsibility to reduce the occurrence and consequences of wildfires. Moreover, on the other hand, the need to develop and disseminate resources, models, materials and messages that contribute to the vision, mission, values and principles of the ideology and the achievement of its objectives.

Climate change affects ecosystems around the world in different ways. In Brazil, the mega-fire in the most extensive and significant world tropical continental floodplain, the Pantanal, alerted us to the need to understand the importance of fire in naturally dynamic wetlands impacted by severe droughts. In this scenario, we performed a literature review to assess how fire studies in the Pantanal relate to events before and after the 2020 mega-fire. From the Web of Science database, a search was performed from 1945 to 2022 with the following expressions: “fire” OR “wildfire” OR “bushfire”; “Pantanal” OR “wetlands”; “Brazil.” Articles were categorized according to bibliographic and environmental indicators. A total of 92 articles were identified, the first dating from 1960. Only from 2000 onwards began an annual publication frequency (1.6 articles per year), which increased to 19 articles a year after the mega-fire. The networks among researchers and universities have significantly increased connections. Studies that aimed to understand the effect of fire in the long term (“fire history”) have increased in importance and frequency since 2012. However, rare articles were found experimentally approaching fire and correlating it with other ecological processes. Regarding the number of articles on remote sensing, the increase in studies on the evaluation of abiotic data was evident. We believe the increase in institutional connections and multidisciplinary research promotes long-term experimental studies that can bring accurate and practical answers concerning integrated fire management in wetlands.

Many nations are at a turning point in environmental management history. The last 100 years indicates fire is a critical disturbance factor throughout much of the United States and re-establishment is urgent. The country is experiencing longer wildfire seasons and unparalleled levels of smoke for long durations leading to adverse effects on public health and safety. Realization of the severity of the Wildfire Crisis, there is heavy investment into hazardous fuels management with a vision of vastly more prescribed fire. The challenge is adding more air pollution into an atmosphere that is already choked with wildfire smoke for longer periods and with recognition that smoke has both public and firefighter health and safety risks.
Environmental regulations are frequently set by media and everyone is desirous of clear vistas and clean air. Trends in fine particulates are encouraging from all sectors but fire. The question is how to add emissions to an atmosphere which is being protected. Many barriers exist to more prescribed fire. There are no boundaries when smoke is in the air. It does not respect land ownership, political boundaries, international boundaries nor potential global effect. Government will need to prepare its citizens for more smoke, whatever the source, in close proximity and far down-wind. The communication challenge and education needed to be Smoke Ready is critical for those at most risk of smoke exposure and mitigation measure investments are critical if there is the smallest chance of public support and acceptance of a more smoke-filled world.