Abstract
This chapter reviews the role of wildfires as an essential element of the Earth system. After a brief explanation of systems theory, we will discuss how fire regulates the oxygen cycle and climate. We will then travel across the Earth’s history to understand how wildfires have shaped the Earth as we know it today. We will cover how fire activity has varied across geological scales and how different processes, including mass extinctions, have been affected by wildfire activity. We will then review fire-human interactions. Wildfires have served as a powerful tool for human alteration of landscape structure. We will provide examples of how humans have modified African, Australian, American, and European landscapes through the use of fire. We will finally discuss the cost of fire to human lives, as the number of fire-induced fatalities from smoke is on the rise. Although wildfires are often perceived as a major environmental problem, their effect over the Earth system makes them an essential element for life.
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Resco de Dios, V. (2020). Fire as an Earth System Process. In: Plant-Fire Interactions . Managing Forest Ecosystems, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41192-3_3
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