Natural disasters such as forest fires are ravaging several parts of the world.
In the Mediterranean basin, the number of ignitions and the area affected by wildfire have increased exponentially over the last decades
due to climate and human geography.
In 2007, the fires that occurred in southern Europe were among the worst on history record with over 300,000 ha of forests burned.
During the summer of 2010, widespread wildfires in western Russia burned thousands of hectares of rangelands and forested areas, while the fire-caused death toll exceeded 50 human casualties
However, concern is not just growing in Europe; in the United States, the annual area burned by wildfire increased in the last decade, despite large expenditures and infrastructures to fight fire
These and other forest fires in recent years are described as environmental disasters, causing loss of life, razing agricultural land and destroying wildland and infrastructure.
Furthermore, fire effects not only include ecological implications on the ecosystems burned but also constitute a major global warming contributor by releasing an average of 1.7 to 4.1 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.