the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 24 Nov 2025
The multi-decadal hazard cascade of a tropical mountain wildfire
Abstract. Climate change is driving wildfires to higher elevations, yet the hazard cascades that follow the burning of pristine tropical mountain ecosystems remain largely unexplored. Here, we analyse the long-term cascade following a February 2012 wildfire that burned 31 km² of forest and wetland in Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains National Park. Combining remote sensing, humanitarian records, field surveys, and interviews, we document ten major floods since 2012, including two debris floods that required large-scale humanitarian responses. Post-fire increases in erosion and mass movement have widened the River Nyamwamba sevenfold since 2012, breaching copper-cobalt mine tailings and mobilising an estimated 744,000 tonnes of waste into the river. Slow vegetation recovery at high altitudes and positive feedbacks between hazards have prolonged this high-risk state, underscoring the susceptibility of tropical mountain ecosystems to long-term post-wildfire cascades. More monitoring and research are required to characterise key hazard interactions after tropical mountain fires, which can guide entry points for management seeking to mitigate and impede future cascades.
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Status: open (until 05 Jan 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-5106', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Dec 2025 reply
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- 1
The article "The multi-decadal hazard cascade of a tropical mountain wildfire" provides a perspective of post-wildfire flood impacts in a tropical montane system, a relatively under-published environment in the post-wildfire scientific circles. The paper is generally well written but could use some minor improvement.
General comments:
I recommend checking sentence structure, especially in the Introduction and Discussion. In particular many sentences appear to be fragmented or worded awkwardly. I also recommend checking for appropriate use of references, there are many statements in the Results section and Discussion section that include interpretation and do not include references to other published works. In some cases the interpretation is backed up by interview citations, which might be acceptable but only if there isn't further interpretation of natural processes by the authors.
Line comments:
Lines 34-35: Fragmented sentences.
Line 39: there should be a caveat with "they are tectonically active", this might be true for the study site but I doubt you mean to say that all tropical mountains are tectonically active.
Figure 2: I like the figure and I think it conveys a point but I worry that it is overly simplistic. For example Landslides can lead to Runoff Pollution as can Fluvial Floods. Avulsion Floods can have a feedback loop to Landslides, Runoff Pollution, and possibly Debris Flows. All of the bubbles in the figure are inter-connected with the exception of the triggering wildfire event. I recommend revising the figure or providing a better explanation to how this figure is correct.
Line 314: I would disagree that all fire-adapted systems have a rapid vegetation recovery. Catastrophic wildfires have created stand replacing fires in parts of Australia and Western North America (among other locations) that has created feedback loops that we have yet to have seen stabilize. I understand the purpose of this sentence but there should be some caution that while tropical mountain forest fires are unusually catastrophic (due to lack of historical fire) they are not completely unique in the long-term vegetation recovery.
Line 335: I think a little more discussion can be used to discuss mimicking natural process. There are a number of papers that talk about this, mostly from a fluvial erosion mitigation stand-point. There's an interesting article from Arizona (USA) on mimicking pre-wildfire alluvial fans to reduce downstream post-wildfire sediment migration. A full paragraph (or two) could be added to this Discussion section to provide a little more context to what is being worked on in other parts of the world to hasten the natural recovery.
In general I thought this was an interesting paper that marries a technical study with a socioeconomic and humanitarian citizen survey. I look forward to seeing the manuscript improved and published.