Soil smoldering in temperate forests: a neglected contributor to fire carbon emissions revealed by atmospheric mixing ratios

Vallet, Lilian; Abdallah, Charbel; Lauvaux, Thomas; Joly, Lilian; Ramonet, Michel; Ciais, Philippe; Lopez, Morgan; Xueref-Remy, Irène; Mouillot, Florent

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-213-2025

Articles | Volume 22, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-213-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-213-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 1

Research article

|

13 Jan 2025

Research article |

| 13 Jan 2025

Soil smoldering in temperate forests: a neglected contributor to fire carbon emissions revealed by atmospheric mixing ratios

Lilian Vallet, Charbel Abdallah, Thomas Lauvaux, Lilian Joly, Michel Ramonet, Philippe Ciais, Morgan Lopez, Irène Xueref-Remy, and Florent Mouillot

Data sets

Fire emissions in France for 2022 fire season Lilian Vallet and Florent Mouillot https://doi.org/10.57932/924f1b65-4032-40ce-879d-89a8348ee804

Short summary

The 2022 fire season had a huge impact on European temperate forest, with several large fires exhibiting prolonged soil combustion reported. We analyzed CO and CO₂ concentration recorded at nearby atmospheric towers, revealing intense smoldering combustion. We refined a fire emission model to incorporate this process. We estimated 7.95 Mteq CO₂ fire emission, twice the global estimate. Fires contributed to 1.97 % of France's annual carbon footprint, reducing forest carbon sink by 30 % this year.