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Worldwide, an estimated 440 million people were exposed to a wildfire encroaching on their home at some point between 2002 and 2021, new research shows. Thats roughly equivalent to the entire population of the European Union, and the number has been steadily risingup 40% over those two decades. With intense, destructive fires often in the news, it can seem like more land is burning. And in parts of the world, including western North America, it is. Globally, however, our team of fire researchers also found that the total area burned actually declined by 26% over those two decades. How is that possible? We found the driving reasons for those changes in Africa, which has the vast majority of all land burned, but the total burned area there has been falling. Agricultural activities in Africa are increasingly fragmenting wildland areas that are prone to burning. A cultivated farm field and roads can help stop a fires spread. But more farms and development in wildland areas also means more people can be exposed to wildfires. Drawing on our expertise in climate and wildfire sciences and geospatial modeling, we analyzed global wildfire activity over the past two decades. The results highlight some common misperceptions and show how the fire risk to humans is changing. Global burned area down, intense fires up Wildfire is a natural process that has existed for as long as vegetation has covered the Earth. Occasional fires in a forest are healthy. They clear out dead wood and leaf and branch litter, leaving less fuel for future fires to burn. That helps to keep wildfires from becoming too intense. However, intense fires can also pose serious threats to human lives, infrastructure and economies, particularly as more people move into fire-prone areas. North and South America have both experienced a rise in intense wildfires over the past two decades. Some notable examples include the 2018 Camp Fire in California and the 2023 record-breaking Canadian wildfires, which generated widespread smoke that blanketed large parts of Canada and the eastern United States, and even reached Europe. The increase in intense wildfires aligns with the intensification of fire weather around the world. Heat, low humidity and strong winds can make wildfires more likely to spread and harder to control. The number of days conducive to extreme fire behavior and new fire ignitions has increased by more than 50% over the past four decades globally, elevating the odds that the amount of land burned in a particular region sets a new record. But fire weather is not the only influence on wildfire risk. The amount of dry vegetation, and whether its in a continuous stretch or broken up, influences fire risk. So do ignition sources, such as vehicles and power lines in wildland areas. Human activities can start fires and fuel climate change, which further dries out the land, amplifying wildfire activity. Fire suppression practices that dont allow low-intensity fires to burn can lead to the accumulation of flammable vegetation, raising the risk of intense fires. North America is a fraction of total burned area In recent years, a growing number of wildfire disasters in North America, Europe and Australia have captured global attention. From the deadly 2025 Los Angeles fires to the devastating 2019-2020 Australian bushfires and the 2018 wildfire in Athens, Greece, flames have increasingly encroached upon human settlements, claiming lives and livelihoods. However, wildfire exposure isnt limited to these high-profile regionswe simply hear more about them. The United States, Europe, and Australia collectively account for less than 2.5% of global human exposure to wildfire. Human exposure to fire occurs when peoples homes fall directly within the area burned by a wildfire. In stark contrast, Africa alone accounts for approximately 85% of all wildfire exposures and 65% of the global burned area. Remarkably, just five central African countriesthe Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Mozambique, Zambia, and Angolaexperience half of all global human exposure to wildfires, even though they account for less than 3% of the global population. These countries receive sufficient moisture to support plant growth, yet they are dry enough that trees and plants burn in frequent fires that in some places occur multiple times per year. Regional trends and drivers of wildfire We found that wildfire exposure increased across all continents except Europe and Oceania, but the underlying drivers of the increase varied by region. In Africa, agricultural expansion has led to more people living in fire-prone areas. In North America, particularly the United States, intensifying fire weatherthe hot, dry, windy conditions conducive to spreading fireshas led to increasingly uncontrollable wildfires that threaten human settlements. In South America, a combination of rising drought frequency and severity, intensifying heat waves and agriculural expansion has amplified wildfire intensity and increased the population in fire-prone regions. In Asia, growing populations in fire-prone areas, combined with more days of fire-friendly weather, led to increased human exposure to wildfires. In contrast, Europe and Oceania have seen declining wildfire exposures, largely due to more people moving to cities and fewer living in rural, fire-prone zones. What to do about it Communities can take steps to prevent destructive wildfires from spreading. For example, vegetation management, such as prescribed fires, can avoid fueling intense fires. Public education, policy enforcement, and engineering solutionssuch as vegetation reduction and clearance along roads and power linescan help reduce human-caused ignitions. As climate change intensifies fire weather and people continue to move into fire-prone zones, proactive mitigation will be increasingly critical. Mojtaba Sadegh is an associate professor of civil engineering and a senior fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health at Boise State University. John Abatzoglou is a professor of engineering at the University of California, Merced. Seyd Teymoor Seydi is a researcher in remote sensing at Boise State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
When it comes to starting a new job, first impressions matter. That’s especially true when it comes to the impression a company makes on new hires during onboarding procedures. According to new research, onboarding procedures such as welcoming new employees, and training them can have long-term impacts. The quality of an employee’s onboarding can affect their long-term motivation and even how long they plan to stick around. A new survey from Software Finder of 1,010 employees who were hired within the last two years found that employees onboarding experiences varied greatly. While almost half (46%) found onboarding procedures to be welcoming, and about a third (34%) said their onboarding was well-structured, many described the experience in negative terms. About a third (29%) said the process was disorganized, 26% described it as rushed, and 21% called it underwhelming. Shockingly, only 28% of new hires said the onboarding process prepared them for their role. In fact, two-thirds (67%) of respondents said the procedures didn’t accurately represent their responsibilities or the company as a whole. A bad onboarding experience can impact how long employees want to stay with the company, the survey found. Nearly half of employees (48%) who said they had a bad onboarding experience, said they wanted to leave the company within six months. However, employees with positive onboarding experiences felt differently. Nearly 4 in 10 (39%) said an effective onboarding actually increased their desire to stick around long term. And over half of employees (55%) with a positive onboarding experience said they’d want to stay at the job long term. By comparison, only 10% of new hires with negative onboarding experiences felt similarly. In fact, 77% of employees who had a positive onboarding experience said they felt more connected to the company after the onboarding. Likewise, 61% of employees said the impact of onboarding has an impact on their future work ethic and engagement. Interestingly, employees seem up for reengagement. Seven out of 10 said they’d favor a re-onboarding experience after their first six months at a new job to help them align more fully with the company. That might be good news for companies who got it wrong the first time around.
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E-Commerce
Digital hoarders, unite! I have a game on my PC that I havent played in months, and its taking up more than 100 GB of disk space. There, I said it. This is a scenario most of us find ourselves in at one point or another. You’re happily using your computer, downloading things, saving files, installing apps, and then . . . a little red bar appears in File Explorer and your PC starts to feel as sluggish as a sloth in quicksand. Don’t worry. Windows 11 has some built-in tools to help you out. Here are three painless ways to get back some of that precious disk space. Set it and forget it with Storage Sense Windows 11 has a nifty little one-and-done feature called Storage Sense. This is the easiest method because once you turn it on, it takes care of things for you in the background. Itll automatically delete temporary files, empty the Recycle Bin, and get rid of old downloadsstuff like that. To activate Storage Sense: Go to Settings > System > Storage. Under the Storage management section, toggle on Storage Sense. You can click on Storage Sense to customize its behavior, such as how often it runs and what it cleans up. Use Cleanup Recommendations If you want to be a little more hands-on, Windows 11 also has a great tool for a onetime cleanup. This is especially useful if you’ve never done this before and want to see what’s taking up the most space. Heres how: Go to Settings > System > Storage. Click on Cleanup recommendations. Windows will scan your system and show you a list of things you can delete, categorized by Temporary files, Large or Unused files, and more. Review the recommendations and click on the Clean Up button for each category you want to empty. Uninstall space-hogging apps Not to insult your intelligence, but in the off chance you havent done this yet, well . . . sometimes the simplest solution is the most effective. Over time, youve undoubtedly installed a bunch of apps you used once or twice and then forgot about. Those can add up to a significant amount of space. The trick is to figure out which ones are taking up the most space. Here’s how: Go to Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. To see which apps are the biggest space hogs, click on the Sort by Dropdown menu and select Size (Large to Small). Go through the list and uninstall any apps you don’t use anymore. Just click the three dots next to the app’s name and select Uninstall. That’s it! With these three methods, you should be able to reclaim a decent chunk of space on your Windows 11 PC and get it running smoothly again.
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E-Commerce
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