RISING FIRE STATISTICS, RISING TEMPERATURES?

Zimbabwean EMA recorded 3 948 fire cases which destroyed about 1 033 722, 86 hectares of land in 2021; lives were lost and sadly among the deceased were two minors aged 5 & 6 in Mashonaland West Province. By 12 October 2022, Zimbabwe has already recorded 5 386 cases which claimed 1.2 million hectares of land and 18 people lost their lives.

I couldn’t find any documented literature which has tried to quantify the actual loss of flora and fauna, who can except God Himself? We only estimate and we are just certain that fire cause loss of biodiversity. How about quantifying the percentage increment of carbon footprint caused by burning or loss of flora due to such fires?

For some countries to take action against fire outbreaks, there has to be loss of human lives and property destruction. By checking the Zimbabwean fire statistics, one can agree with me that cases are increasing every year and their magnitude also denotes the significance of the impact.

Findings from various studies have urged that anthropogenic activities are causing a greater number of fire incidences and 95% of cases in Southern Africa are believed to be as a result of human activities such as hunting, land clearing, throwing of burning cigarette stubs (Hardesty et al., 2005; Njume & Krah, 2020). 

More importantly, I still believe we all need to reshape our behavior towards fire handling. Our recklessness has resulted in uncontrolled fires causing much damage to Mother Earth and humanity. We are already suffering much due to Climate Change, the poor and the marginalised are the mainly affected. Every living creature including flora and fauna are also facing the same challenge of climate change which is causing food scarcity and extinction.

Can we also afford to lose our thriving ecosystems and/ forest livelihoods due to actions we can control? How can humanity fail to recognize the suffering of its integral ecology – a setup we cannot afford to live without nomatter how much we try to neglect it? Can we stop addressing wild fires as a common phenomenon by taking action towards preventing their occurrences? This is a silent cry which is calling for everyone to do something; we all need to join hands ….