According to the FAO (FAO 2012), wildfires are important climate forcing factors as they release aerosol between 25-35% of the total CO 2 net emissions to the atmosphere.

Several hundred million hectares of forest and other vegetation types are estimated to burn annually throughout the world, consuming several billion tons of dry matter and releasing emission compounds that affect the composition and functioning of the global atmosphere and human health. Despite the prominence of fire events, current estimates of the extent and impact of vegetation fires globally are still a challenge. On the other hand, wildfires can also become a threat to property, human life and economy, particularly in ecosystems where fires are an uncommon or even unnatural process. On the one hand, wildfires are a natural part of several ecosystems for maintaining their health and diversity in numerous ways, such as regulating plant succession and fuel accumulations, controlling age, structure and species composition of vegetation, affecting insect and disease populations, influencing nutrient cycles and energy flows, regulating biotic productivity, diversity and stability and determining habitats for wildlife. Wildfires present a challenge for ecosystem management, because they have the potential to be at once beneficial and harmful. Wildfire is the one of the prominent disturbance factor in most vegetation zones throughout the world, like forests and grasslands.

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