Wildfire solutions company OroraTech has published a new white paper that offers strategies for mitigating wildfire risk and protecting the ratings of decarbonization projects.
As the effects of climate change become more evident in everyday life, wildfires are one of the natural disasters that start to threaten more regions around the globe.
For nature-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects, fires pose a threat not only by menacing the atmosphere with the release of CO2 stored in trees and the soil, but also by shrinking buyers’ trust in carbon-tackling initiatives.
Resilience to wildfires is becoming a factor in the equation of project ratings, with entities like BeZero and Sylvera already evaluating these efforts when reviewing projects and awarding bigger scores to initiatives with strategies in place.
Even one wildfire event could bring the rating down, leading to invalidated credits and dented client trust, and the OroraTech white paper outlines various coping mechanisms for this issue.
As the company specializes in wildfire detection and monitoring through satellite imagery, the paper highlights that by opting to use satellite technology, CDR developers can reduce the fire alert time from 90 minutes to under 10 minutes.
It also provides best practices for detection, predictive monitoring, and community response, listing specific recommendations on how to create carbon projects that are climate resilient.
The white paper builds on the experience obtained through the successful application of OroraTech’s technology at the Katingan Mentaya Project—a tropical peatland protection and restoration initiative based in Borneo, Indonesia.
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Ever since 2023, the island, rich in fire-susceptible peat soil, has experienced an increase of wildfires, mainly due to the practice of illegal logging—a forest step for creating plantations.
For this project, OroraTech deployed a constellation of 20+ thermal satellites to monitor every single acre of land for wildfire and other thermal anomalies, granting project developers and investors better visibility on any site changes.
Combined with local on-the-ground teams, this approach contributed to the project’s rating being upgraded from A to AA, demonstrating the importance of having set safeguards against dynamic occurrences like wildfires.
Read more: California Wildfires Consume Forests Used For Carbon Credits
