Abstract
A PAPER on “Forest Fires and Weather”(Sci. Papers Inst. Phys. Chem. Res., Tokyo, vol. 18), by T. Terada and T. Utigasaki, states that the annual loss due to forest fires in Japan is second in magnitude only to that suffered by the United States. Japanese meteorologists might therefore do good service by studying the weather conditions that precede these fires in Japan, and perhaps eventually organising a system of warnings, following the example of the United States. The authors of this paper were led to study this subject with the aid of synoptic weather charts through the known tendency for the fires to break out practically simultaneously in widely scattered parts of Japan. They conclude that such outbreaks are generally associated with the near approach of the ‘squall-line’ or principal cold front of a depression following an easterly track north of Japan, when the warmer of the two wind currents yields maximum temperatures of 20° C. or more. There seems no a priori reason why the front should have anything to do with the matter; it is easy to imagine that the necessary antecedent conditions are merely a sufficiency of wind and warmth, with no rain and perhaps some special state of the air in regard to its water-vapour content. These conditions might seldom occur except on the approach of a depression. As frequently happens with investigations in which synoptic charts are used, the extent to which the evidence supports the conclusions cannot be gauged accurately unless all the charts are reproduced in great detail. It must have been difficult for the authors to determine the position of the front in relation to the outbreaks, seeing that they had to rely upon newspaper reports for the times of the outbreaks.
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Forest Fires in Japan. Nature 131, 161–162 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131161c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131161c0