'It's a risk': Questions about volcano tourism safety arise after New Zealand eruption

Questions linger in the wake of the recent volcanic eruption on White Island, a New Zealand tourist island, that killed 16 people and left 26 with severe burns.

For example: Why were tourists on the island in the first place?

GeoNet, which tracks New Zealand's seismic and volcanic activity, raised its alert level on the island in November after increasing sulfur dioxide gas. Volcanic tremor also increased, and the agency wrote at the time that the island "may be entering a period where eruptive activity is more likely than normal."

The situation brings up another important question: How safe is volcano tourism in general?

"Treat volcanoes with the respect that they deserve because they are relatively unpredictable," warns Erik Klemetti, an associate professor of geosciences at Denison University.

What is volcano tourism?

Volcano tourism is the exploration and study of volcanic and geothermal landforms, including visits to dormant and extinct volcanic regions, according to an entry in the 2016 edition of the Encyclopedia of Tourism.

If you've gone to Hawaii, visiting a volcano may have been on your travel list. Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, for instance, is home to some of the world's most active volcanoes: Kīlauea and Mauna Loa. Kilauea erupted in May last year, one of the biggest eruptions in Hawaii's recent history.

Visiting volcanoes is also popular in other parts of the world, like Indonesia. "Trekking up the slopes of Mount Rinjani is a serious hike that involves at least one-night camping on the mountain and must be done with a guide," Reem El Shafaki, a senior associate at DinarStandard, a research and advisory firm focused on ethical sectors, including tourism, told USA TODAY. "The hike up the mountain offers amazing views in and of itself as trekkers go through lush forests peppered with waterfalls and experience stunning scenery."

Europe's biggest and most active volcano is Mount Etna in Italy, according to Allison Scola of tour agency Experience Sicily. "I bring my groups and program my clients on excursions there at every opportunity. It's possible to walk on extinct craters, go into lava tubes and see eruptions from various centuries," she says.

Across the world, approximately 1,500 potentially active volcanoes exist (not counting the continuous belts of volcanoes on the ocean floor), with 169 in the U.S., according to the United States Geological Survey.

Why would people want to visit volcanoes?

Volcanoes represent the earth being born, according to Tracy Gregg, associate professor of geology at the University of Buffalo, tells USA TODAY. People are intrigued by their beauty and lured in by hot steaming vents of smoke and sulfur and boiling mud pots.

"Volcanoes are among the most dynamic and compelling natural features on Earth," Jessica Ferracane, public affairs specialist at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, tells USA TODAY. "To observe an eruption is an indescribable phenomenon to behold, and people want to experience that."

How risky is it to visit a volcano?

"We consider a volcano to still be active if it has erupted sometime in the last 10,000 years. Humans operate on a timescale that's closer to 25 years," Gregg says.

The ability to forecast eruptions depends on collected info on specific volcanoes and their history. Few volcanoes have been studied in detail, and few are currently monitored with instruments that can tell us if there will be activity.

"Every volcano, like every human being has their own personality," Gregg says. Know someone who twitches their eyebrows right before they explode in anger? You'd look for similar signals from a volcano.

"All volcanoes have the potential to be hazardous, even when they’re not erupting," Ferracane says, "due to sharp lava rock, hot steam, cliff edges, potential earthquakes, and more."

I want to visit a volcano. What should I do before I go?

Don't be mistaken: You're doing something dangerous. "There's not really a safe way to do volcano tourism on active volcanoes," Gregg says. "It's a risk."

White Island had such a risk as volcanic activity there was active. Gregg explains that as far as a volcano was concerned, it wasn't that large of an eruption. But the people in close proximity made it deadly.

"People had been crawling all over that volcano for years before, and no one got hurt," Gregg says.

That said, White Island went from a normal day one moment to an explosion the next, Klemetti tells USA TODAY.

Travelers should check for any advisories or closures, Ferracane says, and you shouldn't go into any closed areas or places known to be unsafe. Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park works with the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (the government agency monitoring Hawaiian volcanoes) to gain "access to real time data and expert analysis that help us make informed decisions for visitor and employee safety."

"During last year’s unprecedented eruption and summit collapse at Kilauea, we closed most of the park for 134 days," Ferracane adds. "No one died or was injured."

Klemetti says people all over the world can look to those in charge, like government agencies, for volcano monitoring safety precautions. He adds that most visits to volcanoes will be safe, but there is a significant risk.

In the U.S., risk levels are fairly low in the Cascades (Oregon, Washington and California, including Mount St. Helens). There's a chance for steam explosions in Yellowstone, but they are low; the biggest hazards there are the hot springs and steam vents, but people are kept away from those. The most active U.S. volcanoes are in Alaska, but those are harder to get to.

"Volcanoes aren't in general inherently more dangerous than other sorts of activities people do," Klemetti says, and "in some cases the level of risk is just not clearly presented to the people who are going out and visiting them."

Contributing: Morgan Hines and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY; Associated Press

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New Zealand volcano eruption: What you need to know about safe tourism