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The Great Fire of 1910: how wildfire smoke changed lives for decades

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Written by Sarah Meier. On the research article by Sarah Meier (University of Exeter), Eric Strobl (University of Bern), and Robert J.R. Elliott (University of Birmingham): The impact of wildfire smoke exposure on excess mortality and later-life socioeconomic outcomes: The Great Fire of 1910.  In the summer of 1910, a firestorm swept across the northern Rocky Mountains, consuming more than 1.2 million hectares in just two days. Known as The Big Burn or The Big Blowup, it became one of the largest wildfires in US history (shown in Figure 1). The Great Fire of 1910 burnt about the size of […]
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The Regional Economic Impact of Wildfires: Evidence from Southern Europe

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Written by Sarah Meier Introduction In recent years news coverage of orange-coloured skies, evacuations, and devastation caused by wildfires has become all too familiar. Even though one tends to only hear about the most calamitous and tragic of fires, every summer Southern European countries experience a large number of fires of varying degrees of seriousness (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2022). These events can be highly disruptive and destructive, affecting many sectors of the economy, such as forestry and agriculture (Butry et al., 2001; Rego et al., 2013), industry and construction (Kramer et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021), and recreation and […]
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Cross-Country Risk Quantification of Extreme Wildfires in Mediterranean Europe

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Written by Sarah Meier Introduction The Mediterranean area is the most fire-prone region within Europe with high wildfire incidence (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2020). Not only do the Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and France together account for about 85% of the total burned area in Europe, the Mediterranean area is also particularly vulnerable in that it is densely populated, characterised by a large wildland urban interface, and due to the species richness and a high proportion of endemism, it represents a biodiversity hotspot (Batllori et al., 2013; Myers et al., 2000). Notably, fire has played an integral role in shaping landscapes […]
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