ABSTRACT

Biomass burning or the burning of vegetation is the burning of living and dead vegetation and includes human-initiated burning and natural lightning-induced burning. The majority of the biomass burning, primarily in the tropics (perhaps as much as 90 per cent), is believed to be human-initiated for land clearing and land use change. Natural fires triggered by atmospheric lightning only account for in the order of about 10 per cent of all fires (Andreae, 1991). As will be discussed, a significant amount of biomass burning occurs in the boreal forests of Russia, Canada and Alaska.