Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science

Cathelijne R. Stoof; Jasper R. De Vries; Marc Castellnou Ribau; Mariña F. Fernández; David Flores; Julissa Galarza Villamar; Nicholas Kettridge; Desmond Lartey; Peter F. Moore; Fiona Newman Thacker; Susan J. Prichard; Pepijn Tersmette; Sam Tuijtel; Ivo Verhaar; Paulo M Fernandes

doi:10.1111/geb.13791

Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science

Cathelijne R. Stoof^*, Jasper R. De Vries, Marc Castellnou Ribau, Mariña F. Fernández^*, David Flores^*, Julissa Galarza Villamar, Nicholas Kettridge, Desmond Lartey, Peter F. Moore, Fiona Newman Thacker, Susan J. Prichard, Pepijn Tersmette, Sam Tuijtel, Ivo Verhaar, Paulo M Fernandes

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Background: As fire regimes are changing and wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent, the term megafire is increasingly used to describe impactful wildfires, under multiple meanings, both in academia and popular media. This has resulted in a highly ambiguous concept.

Approach: We analysed the use of the term ‘megafire’ in popular media to determine its origin, its developments over time, and its meaning in the public sphere. We subsequently discuss how relative the term ‘mega’ is, and put this in the context of an analysis of Portuguese and global data on fire size distribution.

Results: We found that ‘megafire’ originated in the popular news media over 20 years before it appeared in science. Megafire is used in a diversity of languages, considers landscape fires as well as urban fires, and has a variety of meanings in addition to size. What constitutes ‘mega’ is relative and highly context-dependent in space and time, given variation in landscape, climate, and anthropogenic controls, and as revealed in examples from the Netherlands, Portugal and the Global Fire Atlas. Moreover, fire size does not equate to fire impact.

Conclusion: Given the diverse meanings of megafire in the popular media, we argue that redefining megafire in science potentially leads to greater disparity between science and practice. Megafire is widely used as an emotive term that is best left for popular media. For those wanting to use it in science, what constitutes a megafire should be defined by the context in which it is used, not by a metric of one-size-fits-all.

Original language	English
Journal	Global Ecology and Biogeography
Early online date	1 Dec 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13791
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 1 Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Linley et al. for the constructive and systematic analysis and their invitation for debate and discussion, Nicolas Gaulin for screening the news items in French and Sean Parks for suggesting that fire size varies across time. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme MSCA‐ITN‐2019—Innovative Training Networks under grant agreement no. 860787 (PyroLife), the European Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101037419 (FIRE‐RES), the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) UIDB/04033/2020 project, and the OECD Co‐operative Research Programme. The authors also wish to acknowledge NSF's Growing Convergence Research Program (Award Number 2019762) for support of this work.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Global and Planetary Change
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology

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10.1111/geb.13791Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

StoofC2023MegafireFinal published version, 450 KBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

PyroLife - training the next generation of integrated fire management experts
Kettridge, N.
European Commission
1/10/19 → 31/12/24
Project: EU

Cite this

Stoof, C. R., De Vries, J. R., Castellnou Ribau, M., F. Fernández, M., Flores, D., Galarza Villamar, J., Kettridge, N., Lartey, D., Moore, P. F., Newman Thacker, F., Prichard, S. J., Tersmette, P., Tuijtel, S., Verhaar, I., & Fernandes, P. M. (2023). Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13791

@article{f4758f8a51184333b0fd03766598afc1,

title = "Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science",

abstract = "Background: As fire regimes are changing and wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent, the term megafire is increasingly used to describe impactful wildfires, under multiple meanings, both in academia and popular media. This has resulted in a highly ambiguous concept.Approach: We analysed the use of the term {\textquoteleft}megafire{\textquoteright} in popular media to determine its origin, its developments over time, and its meaning in the public sphere. We subsequently discuss how relative the term {\textquoteleft}mega{\textquoteright} is, and put this in the context of an analysis of Portuguese and global data on fire size distribution.Results: We found that {\textquoteleft}megafire{\textquoteright} originated in the popular news media over 20 years before it appeared in science. Megafire is used in a diversity of languages, considers landscape fires as well as urban fires, and has a variety of meanings in addition to size. What constitutes {\textquoteleft}mega{\textquoteright} is relative and highly context-dependent in space and time, given variation in landscape, climate, and anthropogenic controls, and as revealed in examples from the Netherlands, Portugal and the Global Fire Atlas. Moreover, fire size does not equate to fire impact.Conclusion: Given the diverse meanings of megafire in the popular media, we argue that redefining megafire in science potentially leads to greater disparity between science and practice. Megafire is widely used as an emotive term that is best left for popular media. For those wanting to use it in science, what constitutes a megafire should be defined by the context in which it is used, not by a metric of one-size-fits-all.",

author = "Stoof, {Cathelijne R.} and {De Vries}, {Jasper R.} and Marc Castellnou Ribau and {F. Fern{\'a}ndez}, Mari{\~n}a and David Flores and Julissa Galarza Villamar and Nicholas Kettridge and Desmond Lartey and Moore, {Peter F.} and Fiona Newman Thacker and Prichard, {Susan J.} and Pepijn Tersmette and Sam Tuijtel and Ivo Verhaar and Fernandes, {Paulo M}",

note = "Funding Information: We thank Linley et al. for the constructive and systematic analysis and their invitation for debate and discussion, Nicolas Gaulin for screening the news items in French and Sean Parks for suggesting that fire size varies across time. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme MSCA‐ITN‐2019—Innovative Training Networks under grant agreement no. 860787 (PyroLife), the European Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101037419 (FIRE‐RES), the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) UIDB/04033/2020 project, and the OECD Co‐operative Research Programme. The authors also wish to acknowledge NSF's Growing Convergence Research Program (Award Number 2019762) for support of this work. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",

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doi = "10.1111/geb.13791",

language = "English",

journal = "Global Ecology and Biogeography",

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AU - Stoof, Cathelijne R.

AU - De Vries, Jasper R.

AU - Castellnou Ribau, Marc

AU - F. Fernández, Mariña

AU - Flores, David

AU - Galarza Villamar, Julissa

AU - Kettridge, Nicholas

AU - Lartey, Desmond

AU - Moore, Peter F.

AU - Newman Thacker, Fiona

AU - Prichard, Susan J.

AU - Tersmette, Pepijn

AU - Tuijtel, Sam

AU - Verhaar, Ivo

AU - Fernandes, Paulo M

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Linley et al. for the constructive and systematic analysis and their invitation for debate and discussion, Nicolas Gaulin for screening the news items in French and Sean Parks for suggesting that fire size varies across time. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme MSCA‐ITN‐2019—Innovative Training Networks under grant agreement no. 860787 (PyroLife), the European Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101037419 (FIRE‐RES), the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) UIDB/04033/2020 project, and the OECD Co‐operative Research Programme. The authors also wish to acknowledge NSF's Growing Convergence Research Program (Award Number 2019762) for support of this work. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2023/12/1

Y1 - 2023/12/1

N2 - Background: As fire regimes are changing and wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent, the term megafire is increasingly used to describe impactful wildfires, under multiple meanings, both in academia and popular media. This has resulted in a highly ambiguous concept.Approach: We analysed the use of the term ‘megafire’ in popular media to determine its origin, its developments over time, and its meaning in the public sphere. We subsequently discuss how relative the term ‘mega’ is, and put this in the context of an analysis of Portuguese and global data on fire size distribution.Results: We found that ‘megafire’ originated in the popular news media over 20 years before it appeared in science. Megafire is used in a diversity of languages, considers landscape fires as well as urban fires, and has a variety of meanings in addition to size. What constitutes ‘mega’ is relative and highly context-dependent in space and time, given variation in landscape, climate, and anthropogenic controls, and as revealed in examples from the Netherlands, Portugal and the Global Fire Atlas. Moreover, fire size does not equate to fire impact.Conclusion: Given the diverse meanings of megafire in the popular media, we argue that redefining megafire in science potentially leads to greater disparity between science and practice. Megafire is widely used as an emotive term that is best left for popular media. For those wanting to use it in science, what constitutes a megafire should be defined by the context in which it is used, not by a metric of one-size-fits-all.

AB - Background: As fire regimes are changing and wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent, the term megafire is increasingly used to describe impactful wildfires, under multiple meanings, both in academia and popular media. This has resulted in a highly ambiguous concept.Approach: We analysed the use of the term ‘megafire’ in popular media to determine its origin, its developments over time, and its meaning in the public sphere. We subsequently discuss how relative the term ‘mega’ is, and put this in the context of an analysis of Portuguese and global data on fire size distribution.Results: We found that ‘megafire’ originated in the popular news media over 20 years before it appeared in science. Megafire is used in a diversity of languages, considers landscape fires as well as urban fires, and has a variety of meanings in addition to size. What constitutes ‘mega’ is relative and highly context-dependent in space and time, given variation in landscape, climate, and anthropogenic controls, and as revealed in examples from the Netherlands, Portugal and the Global Fire Atlas. Moreover, fire size does not equate to fire impact.Conclusion: Given the diverse meanings of megafire in the popular media, we argue that redefining megafire in science potentially leads to greater disparity between science and practice. Megafire is widely used as an emotive term that is best left for popular media. For those wanting to use it in science, what constitutes a megafire should be defined by the context in which it is used, not by a metric of one-size-fits-all.

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Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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PyroLife - training the next generation of integrated fire management experts

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