Extensive research on the impact of wildland fires has been accomplished in the 1990s. The largest international fire research initiative was the Southern Africa Fire-Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI), which was operational in the field and laboratory between 1991 and 1996. The scientific results (JGR 1996) were synoptically published by van Wilgen et al. (1997) and show the ecological and atmospheric significance of wildland fires in the southern African subcontinent. At the time of writing this report a Southern African Regional Science Initiative (SAFARI-2000) is operational that includes a fire research component (SAFARI 2000). Numerous other fire research projects have been conducted in other parts of Africa.
Gas and aerosol emissions from vegetation fires in Africa have been assessed by numerous research groups and have recently been re-evaluated (Scholes and Andreae 2000). This report indicates that fires in African savannah ecosystems account for about 22 percent of the phytomass burned globally. In Africa more phytomass is apparently burned in shifting cultivation than in deforestation (permanent conversion of forest to other land-use systems). However, reliable data on emissions from forest conversion burning are not available.
The prevailing dry conditions during the fire season and the dryness of fuels exposed to fire results in high fire intensities and the export of smoke, which is lifted into the troposphere. Thus, unlike the near-ground pollution of smoke from of forest conversion burning and peat fires in Southeast Asia, smoke from the majority of wildland fires in Africa does not pose a critical threat to human health. However, the consequences to atmospheric chemistry are very significant, e.g. the seasonal increase of tropospheric ozone concentration in the southern hemisphere. Vegetation burning in Africa contributes to the emission of radiatively active trace gases. An increase in the anthropogenic greenhouse effect depends on the fate of carbon and the regeneration potential of forest and other vegetation after fire. Cyclic and sustainable burning of African savannahs and woodlands does not lead to a net increase of atmospheric carbon. However, forests that are degraded or destroyed by fire contribute to a net increase of carbon. Increased deforestation and associated fire in the Guineo-Congolian rainforests or the afro-montane and coastal forests will certainly contribute to a net release of carbon into the atmosphere.
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