How wild fires are eating up Kenya's forest coverage

Wildfires have continued to slowly eat up Kenya's forest as new data reveals rising fire alerts across the country.

While wild fires are not the major cause of deforestation, it ranks among the major contributors especially in times when droughts are more frequent. New data from Global Forest Watch, a forest monitor that offers latest data on global forests, shows Kenya is no exception in losing forest cover to wild fires. Between 2001 and 2021, the country lost 1.98kha of tree cover from wild fires.

"Climate change and forest degradation and fragmentation have led to more fire-prone conditions globally. With hotter and drier conditions, fires - either ignited by humans or by lightning - are more likely to burn over larger areas and at hotter temperatures. Forests degraded by logging and disease, and fragmented by deforestation are also more susceptible to fire," Global Forest Watch said.

Although agriculture remained the highest driver of forest cover loss, 2017 remained the year when Kenya recorded the most tree cover loss due to fires. That year, 178ha was lost to fires.

According to forest monitor, peak fire season typically begins in mid-January and lasts around 13 weeks.

Between April 20, 2020 and April 17, 2023, the country received 10,050 fire alerts. Between April 18, 2022, and April 17, this year, some 780 fire alerts were reported across the country. According to the forest monitor, the alerts were high compared to previous years going back to 2012.

"In Kenya, 34kha of land has burned so far in 2022. This total is normal compared to the total for previous years going back to 2001. The most fires recorded in a year was 2012, with 1.1Mha," Global Forest Watch said.

Data also reveals that besides fire alerts, a total of 18,377 deforestation alerts were reported across the country between April 7 and April 14.

As the World Earth Day was marked yesterday, forest fires, Global Forest Watch says, often have important implications for carbon emissions, ecosystems and human health. In March this year, Environment CS Soipan Tuiya convened a meeting to deliberate on the rising cases of forest fires.

She said between December 2022 and February this year, forest fire incidents have been on the rise, with forests within the Mau Forest complex taking the lead. Forests in Central highlands and the Western region rank second and third in forest fire incidents.

During the period, the country had recorded 180 fire incidents, out of which 63 were recorded within forests blocks in Mau Forest. To stem the rising cases of forest fires, Soipan said the government had secured a five-year grant from the French government to combat the rising cases of wildfires.

"Part of the component of the project is to ensure we have modern forest fire monitoring technologies like fire monitoring and detection systems," CS Tuya said.

The detection systems, she says, will consist of five observatory and response status located in selected forest fire hotspots like Mt Kenya, Aberdare and Mau forests. The detection systems in these forests will be linked to a central coordinating centre in Nairobi.

"The system will be backed by aerial and ground surveillance and fire fighting vehicles," she added.