South Korea’s deadly fires made twice as likely by climate change, researchers say

By David Stanway

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -South Korea’s worst ever wildfires in March were made twice as likely as a result of climate change and such disasters could become even more frequent if temperatures continue to rise, scientists said on Thursday.

Fires in the country’s southeast blazed for nearly a week, killing 32 people and destroying around 5,000 buildings before they were brought under control in late March.

The fires burned through 104,000 hectares (257,000 acres) of land, making them nearly four times more extensive than South Korea’s previous worst fire season 25 years ago.

The hot, dry and windy conditions were made twice as likely and 15% more intense as a result of climate change, a team of 15 researchers with the World Weather Attribution group said after combining observational data with climate modelling.

South Korea normally experiences cold dry winters and rapid increases in temperature in March and April, making it vulnerable to fires at that time of year, said June-Yi Lee of the Research Center for Climate Sciences at Pusan National University.

This year, average temperatures from March 22-26 were 10 degrees Celsius higher than usual in the southeast, and patterns of low and high pressure to the north and south generated the powerful winds that helped the fire spread, she told a briefing.

“This year, the size of the impact was very extreme … because of the dry weather, the heat and the high temperatures – a perfect storm of conditions,” she said.

The weather that drove the fires could become even more common if global warming continues on its current trajectory and rises another 1.3 degrees by 2100.

“The models project on average a further increase of about 5% in intensity and a further doubling of the likelihood of similarly extreme events,” said Clair Barnes of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London (ICL).

The blazes also raised concerns that South Korea’s extensive tree planting programme since the 1970s had made the country more fire-prone, and forest management needs to adjust to meet the challenges of extreme heat, said Theo Keeping at ICL’s Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires.

“Once a wildfire event is extreme enough, it can’t be put out with drops from planes and helicopters or from spraying water from the ground … so we need to manage risk before these events happen,” he said.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)