Forest fire

Introduction References & Edit History Related Topics

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ecological succession

Smoke from Central American forest fires drifting over North America, as measured by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on May 22, 1998.NASA's Earth Probe Mission satellite can detect smoke in the atmosphere and is thus able to monitor large fires from space. Aboard the satellite, TOMS measures aerosols, enabling scientists to create maps of the smoke's density.

Smoke over Indonesia on September 24, 1997.Hundreds of fires set by loggers, farmers, and plantation owners burned on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Smoke from fires set on the island of New Guinea is also visible.

Smoke over South America on March 27, 1998.In South America fires burned out of control in the state of Roraima, Brazil, as well as in Colombia and Venezuela.

How does a forest recover after a wildfire?

Forest fire: References & Edit History

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Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

Jeffrey Kane
Assistant Professor of Fire Ecology and Fuels Management at Humboldt State University
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

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Article History

Type	Description	Contributor	Date
	Article title updated for style.	The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica	Nov 12, 2026
	Add new Web site: IOPscience - IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science - Method of Estimating Forest Fire Impact on Vegetation.	Emily Rodriguez	Oct 28, 2026
	Add new Web site: National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Is a Forest Fire a Natural Disaster? Investigating the Fire Tolerance of Various Tree SpeciesAn Educational Module.	Emily Rodriguez	Apr 10, 2025
	Add new Web site: University of Valencia - What are a fire and a forest fire (PDF).	Yamini Chauhan	Feb 26, 2025
	Add new Web site: Academia - Forest Fire Studies on Fire Behaviour: Key Topics and Their Importance (PDF).	Gloria Lotha	Jan 03, 2025
	Add new Web site: Natural Resources Canada - Forest fires.	Gloria Lotha	Nov 22, 2024
	Add new Web site: Nature - Forest fire size amplifies postfire land surface warming.	Yamini Chauhan	Oct 11, 2024
	Add new Web site: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Forest fire and biological diversity.	Gloria Lotha	Aug 30, 2024
	Add new Web site: CORE - A Data Mining Approach to Predict Forest Fires using Meteorological Data (PDF).	Aakanksha Gaur	Jul 19, 2024
	Add new Web site: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Forest fire and biological diversity.	Gloria Lotha	Mar 01, 2024
	Added information about the ecological importance of fire in some forest systems.	Melissa Petruzzello	Jan 18, 2022
	Add new Web site: Healthline - Lens.	Grace Young	May 21, 2015
	Added new Web site: National geographic - Wildfire.	Shiveta Singh	Apr 20, 2009
	Media added.	Amy Tikkanen	Mar 07, 2009
	Added new Web site: How Stuff Works - Science - How Wildfires Work.	Shiveta Singh	Dec 26, 2008
	Added new Web site: Buzzle.com - Absinthe Effects.	Gloria Lotha	Aug 26, 2008
	Added new Web site: US Geological Survey - Fire Ecology Research.	Gloria Lotha	Nov 02, 2006
	Article added to new online database.	The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica	Jul 20, 1998