Fire is a natural disturbance event that has also been used by humans for millennia as a tool to manipulate their environment. Fire still plays an essential role in many societies today; however, fire is not always used appropriately and can often be damaging. The danger is exacerbated by issues such as changes in land use, increasing population in rural areas, inadequate or inappropriate policy, and climate change. Traditional fire...

This global overview of fires in vegetation is based on 12 regional working paper submitted mainly by representatives of the UN-ISDR Global Wildland Fire Network in late 2005. Although many of the countries concerned aknowledged that the reliability of the information may not be hight, it is nevertheless the best estimate of the forest fire situation to date and gives a good indication of the scale of the impact of vegetation...

These non-binding, voluntary guidelines set out a framework of priority principles that will aid in the formulation of policy, legal, regulatory and other enabling conditions and strategic actions for more holistic approaches to fire management. They have been tailored primarily for land-use policy makers, planners and managers in fire management, including states, the private sector and non-governmental organizations. The guidelines for fire management cover the positive and negative social, cultural, environmental...

Fire is an important land management tool, but careless or criminal use of fire may have catastrophic impacts. Wildfire can be a major cause of ecpsystem degradation and may result in loss of human life, economic devastation, social disruption and environmental deterioration. Each year fires destroy millions of hectares of valuable timber, other forest products, and environmantal services provided by forest ecosystems.