Fire on Earth An Introduction

About this book

Fire on Earth: An Introduction transcends individual subfields to bring together our current understanding of this significant topic. Fire on Earth: An Introduction will go beyond a summary of existing data to provide a foundation for an interdisciplinary field of Fire Research.

Divided into four parts, Fire on Earth: An Introduction covers fire in earth history – including how lessons from the past can be applied to modern climate change – the ecology and biogeography of modern fires, the role of fire in human culture and the physical behavior of vegetation fires.

Fire on Earth: An Introduction is unique in uniting a broad range of fire research in one comprehensive text and placing current research in the context of fire behavior and dynamics over earth's history. Fire on Earth: An Introduction will be indispensible to all researchers in fire science, particularly advanced students and graduates in fire management, fire behavior, fire ecology and related courses. It will also be valuable reading for researchers in plant science, geology, climatology, atmospheric sciences and those interested in global climate change.

Contents

Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xv
About the Authors xvii
About the Companion Website xix

Part One. Fire in the Earth System 1
Chapter 1 What is fire? 3
Chapter 2 Fire in the fossil record: recognition 47
Chapter 3 Fire in the fossil record: earth system processes 65
Chapter 4 The geological history of fire in deep time: 420 million years to 2 million years ago 73
Chapter 5 The geological history of fire – the last two million years 91

Part Two. Biology of Fire 111
Chapter 6 Pyrogeography – temporal and spatial patterns of fire 113
Chapter 7 Plants and fire 131
Chapter 8 Fire and fauna 147
Chapter 9 Fire as an ecosystem process 157
Chapter 10 Fire and anthropogenic environmental change 171

Part Three. Anthropogenic Fire 193
Chapter 11 Fire creature 195
Chapter 12 A new epoch of fire: the anthropocene 231
Chapter 13 Fire management 259

Part Four. The Science and Art of Wildland Fire Behaviour Prediction 295
Chapter 14 Fundamentals of wildland fire as a physical process 297
Chapter 15 Estimating free-burning wildland fire behaviour 341
Chapter 16 Fire management applications of wildland fire behaviour knowledge 373

Index 405

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