Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • RESEARCH BRIEFINGS

The night brakes on fires are failing

Night-time is usually a crucial period when fires lose energy, limiting their size and severity, and helping people to control their spread. But rapid night-time warming over the past several decades, combined with global increases in fire intensity at night, suggest that the naturally occurring brakes on fires are weakening.

This is a summary of: Balch, J. K. et al. Warming weakens the night-time barrier to global fire. Nature 602, 442–448 (2022).

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00352-8

‘Expert opinion’ is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

References

  1. Giglio, L. Remote Sens. Environ. 108, 407–421 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Thorne, P. W. et al. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121, 5138–5158 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Andela, N. et al. Science 356, 1356–1362 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Williams, A. P. et al. Earths Future 7, 892–910 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Balch, J. K. et al. Bioscience 65, 893–905 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links