Discuss both the positive and negative impacts. Include issues of water and air pollution and impacts on soils. Ask the students what there is more of and what there is less of after a wildland fire. List their responses and reinforce. To provide an opportunity to expand or reinforce understanding of basic ecological concepts and apply that understanding to fire ecology.
Fire is studied as a natural process operating as a component of an ecosystem.
To understand an ecosystem requires looking beyond the ecosystem's present state. Full understanding includes an investigation of the ecosystem's origin, the cycles the ecosystem progresses through, and possible future stages. Fire, similar to floods, earthquakes, storms, etc. can be viewed as one means of promoting changes in an ecosystem. In the 1930s, researchers began to challenge the negative notions about wildland fires and argued that fire was essential to many plant and animal communities. For example, in drier ecosystems around the world where there is not enough moisture to help in the decay of dead plants, fire is required to break down and help recycle the nutrients.