ABSTRACT
Wildland fire is any fire burning vegetation (e.g., forests, grasslands) that occurs in wildland areas. Earth has experienced wildland fires for more than 400 million years, with about 2% of terrestrial land being burned annually in the modern period. Wildland fires were perceived as a damaging agent to natural and social systems, but recent advances in fire ecology have raised awareness that wildland fire is an essential natural disturbance that plays a vital role in shaping global biome distribution, species evolution, plant traits, and biodiversity. This entry discusses causes, characteristics, consequences, and management of wildland fire. Select focus areas include dominant controls of wildland fire (i.e., fire triangles) at multiple spatiotemporal scales, parameters to describe characteristics of a single fire event (i.e., fire behavior) and recurring fire events in a landscape over an extended period of time (i.e., fire regime), the ecological effects of wildland fire, and the history of wildland fire policy.
