Smouldering megafires are the largest and longest-burning fires on Earth. They destroy essential peatland ecosystems, and are responsible for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same amount attributed to the whole of the European Union, and yet it is not accounted for in global carbon budgets. Peat fires also induce surges of respiratory emergencies in the population and disrupt shipping and aviation routes for long periods, weeks even months. The ambition of HAZE was to advance the science and create the technology that will reduce the burden of smouldering fires. Despite their importance, before HAZE no one understood how smouldering fires ignite, spread and extinguish, which impeded the development of successful mitigation strategy. Megafires are still routinely fought across the globe with techniques that were developed for flaming fires, and are thus ineffective for smouldering. Moreover, the burning of deep peat affects older soil carbon that has not been part of the active carbon cycle for centuries to millennia, and thus creates a positive feedback to the climate system. HAZE has turned the challenges faced by smouldering research into opportunities. With this research, Europe has now the chance to lead the way and pioneer technologies against this Earth-scale and important but unconventional source of emissions. With the support of ERC, we delivered the science and excellence needed to tackle this global challenge, and in doing so, we have advance the knowledge frontier, fostered innovation and developed new young talent for UK, Europe, Asia and USA. The topic of peat fires is inherently interdisciplinary since geoscientists study the ecosystem and the soil chemistry of peatlands, while combustion experts, like me, study the smouldering phenomena. This has been a challenge to previous work and has led to a very fragmented science topic, but it is also an opportunity that we have embraced. In HAZE, we have followed a research approach that belongs to thermofluids and mechanical engineering but that studies a geoscience topic. We sat at the interface between the disciplines studying smouldering megafires, and my network of collaborators penetrates ecology, geology, atmosphere sciences and biochemistry. We attended their conferences and have been invited to deliver presentations to them (eg, EGU, IHSS, FESP, IAWF). Some of the outputs of HAZE are best appreciate by geoscientist. For example, HAZE models can simulate megafire occurrences worldwide and their emissions, informing weather and climate models, pollution information systems and carbon inventories.
