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Fire Suppression and the Wildfire Paradox in Contemporary China: Policies, Resilience, and Effects in Chinese Fire Regimes

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Abstract

China has a long history of both using and managing fire use while still regularly forced to fight forest fires. My approach seeks to generate historical insights that explain how the wildfire paradox developed over the past 150 years in northeastern and southwestern China. To explore these dynamics, I use the concepts of “panarchy” and adaptive cycles, rigidity and wildfire paradox, and fire fences and corridors to explore socio-ecological resilience and fire management. By examining the interaction of wildfires and successive fire policies, the fundamental transformation of fire suppression after 1949, along with adaptive cycles of disruption and recovery in fire prone areas, I hope to broaden perspectives on how ideas, policies and people influenced forest ecosystems and resilience through total fire suppression concepts.

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Notes

  1. See research by Thomas Spies et al. (2014) and Michelle Steens-Adams et al. (2017) on wildfire-society relations. This analysis draws from a larger project that incorporates more material on indigenous fire and landscape management, China’s southern fire regime, and other historical materials.

  2. The other key, “anthropogenic biome” (Miller 2020), the south/southeastern Chinese fire and forest regime, has a long fire and forest management history explored in detail elsewhere (Coggins 2002a, 2002b on indigenous fire landscape management in Fujian; Chandler 1994 on indigenous agro-forestry in the southeast, Menzies 1988 on successional agro-forestery/tuangya in the south; Marks 1996 on indigenous agriculture and swidden cultivation in the south; Miller 2020 on late imperial forestry development in the south). Since at least the tenth century CE (Coggins 2002), this was the key region for Cunninghamia lanceolata (Chinese fir) and bamboo (among other species) for agro-forestry, crafts and construction, and as it was harvested, nurtured, and tapped out, slowly shifted large scale timber harvesting to the southwest and eventually northeast by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

  3. Subalpine coniferous forest is the main type, generally distributed at elevations ranging from 2400 to 3600 m above sea level. In the lower mountainous regions Pinus densata, P. yunnanensis, and P. tabulaeformis forest dominates sunny slopes, and hemlock (Tsuga chinensis) and various broadleaf and coniferous mixed forests (e.g. T. chinensis, Acer spp., Betula spp., Alnus spp. Quercus spp.) are distributed over semi-shady or shady slopes. In the upper part of the mountains, the main vegetation is subalpine evergreen coniferous forests, including pure evergreen (e.g. Picea asperata, Abies fabri) and mixed forests.

  4. Fires smaller than 1, 1–100 and 100–1000 ha accounted for 66.2, 33.5 and 0.3% of the total burnt areas. Forest fires larger than 1000 ha were rare (only 2). The average annual burnt area per year was 41,839 ha (range 14,329–72,127 ha), of which 8119 ha was covered by forests. Forest fires mainly occur in P. yunnanensis and P. kesiya forests, located in drier sites, and in prairie, shrub and grassland areas where fire is commonly used for grassland and meadow-pastoral regeneration (Di et al. 2008, Tian et al. 2005, 2011, 2014, 2015).

  5. Between 2001 and 2011 in Yunnan, approximately 51% of forest fires had non-productive and 44% productive fire sources (Tian et al. 2010; Tian et al. 2011). Other authorities generally back these statics (Wang et al. 2012; Ying et al. 2018; Zhao et al. 2007).

  6. The canopy species composition is relatively simple, including larch (Larix gmelini), pine (Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica), spruce (Picea koraiensis), birch (Betula platyphylla), and two species of aspen (Populus davidiana and P. suaveolens). With the exception of some portions of wetland near rivers, larch is widely distributed over 65% of the study area. Birch and pine are mixed with larch in most areas owing to fire disturbance and forest harvesting, with pine having a small area of distribution (1.8%). Aspen is confined to terraces along the rivers where water is plentiful. Spruce, being highly shade tolerant, occurs mostly in valleys and high elevation areas, and pine (Pinus pumila) occurs mostly in elevations >800 m (see Liu et al. 2010; Xu 1997; Ying et al. 2018; Zhang and Feng 2005; Zhao et al. 2013; Hu and Jin 2002)

  7. The 1987 Daxing’anling or May 6 wildfire lasted almost a month, spread from Heilongjiang to Russia, and burned approximately 7.3 million hectares of forest and scrubland. 211 people were killed, 50 k made homeless, and several counties were effectively destroyed. The fire had sweeping effects on forest stands, led to severe soil erosion and post-fire flooding events, and made forest recovery in the region difficult for nearly a decade. It also created the policy and political situation for a large-scale revision of Chinese forest fire and firefighting policy. See Du and Wang 2007: 104–12; Shu et al. 2006; Wang et al. 2006.

  8. In contrast, Ian Miller’s (2020) study of fir and empire in south central and Robert Marks’ work on Guangdong swidden agriculture (1996) push the pyro-historical timeline to tenth century CE. Prior to the twentieth century, the majority of structural timber came from the Yangtze Basin south in the form of Chinese fir.

  9. This is borne out in historical terms (based on historical literary and administrative sources) from at least the Song Dynasty forward (Zhong 2004), as well as raw data in the 3000+ pages Zhongguo huozai dadian (Grand Collection of Chinese Fire Disasters, 1998) (Zhongguo Huozai 1998; Hayes 2012).

  10. The use of historical frameworks by researchers has expanded knowledge of social influences on natural fire regimes and fire landscapes, highlighting strategies for coexistence between human societies and wildfire (see Pyne 1997, 2009; Lei Fang et al. 2015; Chang et al. 2008; Bowman et al. 2011; Spies et al. 2014).

  11. From the 1750s–1940s, local ethnic minority customary laws/legal norms and systems were the norm in forested areas of the southwest (e.g. Tibetan and Mongol villages, temple laws in Dege, Labrang Monastery, Tewo and Maqu Tusi and related territories in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan Provinces). See Hayes 2015.

  12. For example, the Jinchuan County forest brigades (Guanyin Bridge 501–506) in the late 1950s and 1960s harvested timber and managed forests. Between 1960 and 1966 in particular, they fought a number of large (and many smaller) wildfires in Aba Prefecture, sometimes including all members of the brigades as well as local Tibetan and other community members (Aba Zhou 2003: 390–91).

  13. After 1978, the FPF became an active arm of the military, and in 1987 they formally added to the tightly centralized People’s Armed Police Forces of China (PAPF). While carrying out its fire control responsibilities, the FPF is commanded by fire suppression offices of prefecture or local county governments. It is administered by both the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Public Security; however, because of its mandate, command and control resides with the Ministry of Forestry. See Hu and Woodward 1997.

  14. The Forest Fire Law states that the units and individuals that manage the forest are responsible for fire that occurs on the land, and they are required to sign contacts to guarantee their responsibility for an area. The National Forest Fire Management Headquarters should guide and coordinate the country as a whole to fight against fires, and can take measures against large scale or multi-jurisdictional fire emergencies. See Chen and Di 2015.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Steve Harrell, Denise Glover, two anonymous reviewers, and the participants of the Resilience, Response, and Reclamation in the Ecology and Environment of Greater China Symposium at the University of Puget Sound for feedback and discussion of this essay. Research support at various stages was provided by Kwantlen Polytechnic University and carried out at Kwantlen Polytechnic and the Centre for Chinese Research, University of British Columbia.

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    Jack Patrick Hayes

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Hayes, J.P. Fire Suppression and the Wildfire Paradox in Contemporary China: Policies, Resilience, and Effects in Chinese Fire Regimes. Hum Ecol 49, 19–32 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00183-z

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