A global expert elicitation on present-day human–fire interactions

Human fire use contributes to fire regimes and benefits societies worldwide yet is poorly understood at the global scale. We present the Global Fire Use Survey (GFUS), an effort to elicit and systematize knowledge about fire use from experts, including academics and practitioners. The GFUS data cover the stakeholders using fire, reasons for and seasonality of burning, recent trends in anthropogenic ignitions and burned area and the presence/absence and effectiveness of different policy interventions targeting fire use. The survey garnered 311 responses for regions covering over 50% of the Earth's ice-free land, improving on the coverage of literature syntheses on fire use. Here, we analyse the data on the distribution of fire use and policy interventions. The survey suggests that the most widespread fire users are Indigenous and local people burning to meet objectives associated with small-scale livelihoods and cultural priorities, whereas burning by commercial land users, state agencies and non-governmental organizations is less widespread. Regulatory restrictions are the most common policy interventions targeting fire use but are ineffective in achieving their aims in regions with higher burned area. While community-led governance of burning is rarer, it was deemed more effective than restrictive policy interventions, particularly in regions with higher burned area.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

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Publication Details

Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Published
2025-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0463
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Fire effects on ecosystems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.42

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article

A global expert elicitation on present-day human–fire interactions

Amy Cardinal Christianson, Jayalaxshmi Mistry, Paul Laris, Erle C. Ellis et al.
4 citations
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Fire effects on ecosystems
4.42
article

A global expert elicitation on present-day human–fire interactions

Amy Cardinal Christianson, Jayalaxshmi Mistry, Paul Laris, Erle C. Ellis, Wolfram Dressler, Simon Haberle, Jed O. Kaplan, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Oliver Perkins, Cathy Smith, Bibiana Bilbao, Claudia Monzón-Alvarado, James Millington, Cynthia Fowler, Ludivine Eloy, Kayla Maria de Freitas
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Human fire use contributes to fire regimes and benefits societies worldwide yet is poorly understood at the global scale. We present the Global Fire Use Survey (GFUS), an effort to elicit and systematize knowledge about fire use from experts, including academics and practitioners. The GFUS data cover the stakeholders using fire, reasons for and seasonality of burning, recent trends in anthropogenic ignitions and burned area and the presence/absence and effectiveness of different policy interventions targeting fire use. The survey garnered 311 responses for regions covering over 50% of the Earth's ice-free land, improving on the coverage of literature syntheses on fire use. Here, we analyse the data on the distribution of fire use and policy interventions. The survey suggests that the most widespread fire users are Indigenous and local people burning to meet objectives associated with small-scale livelihoods and cultural priorities, whereas burning by commercial land users, state agencies and non-governmental organizations is less widespread. Regulatory restrictions are the most common policy interventions targeting fire use but are ineffective in achieving their aims in regions with higher burned area. While community-led governance of burning is rarer, it was deemed more effective than restrictive policy interventions, particularly in regions with higher burned area.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesVol. 380(1924)
Australian National University (AU), California State University System (US), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Pennsylvania State University (US), Wofford College (US), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (FR), The University of Melbourne (AU), University of Calgary (CA), King's College London (GB), Royal Holloway University of London (GB), Université de Montpellier (FR), Acteurs, Ressources et Territoires dans le Développement (FR), The Folklore Society (GB), Universidad Simón Bolívar (CO)
Leverhulme Trust
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 6%
Fire effects on ecosystems
4.42
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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