Long before fire was used by humans, wildfires initially played an important role in maintaining the world's ecology. Forest fire drivers can be divided into two types: natural forest fires and human-caused forest fires. Human-caused fires are usually detected before natural forest fires, which could burn for hours long before firefighters arrive. Therefore, natural forest fires cause greater damage to forests in terms of area burned than human-induced forest fires, although the latter actually contributed to a higher percentage of total forest fire cases. Natural forest fires are the result of spontaneous combustion, volcanic activity, or lightning, which is the most significant of the three factors listed. Statistics have shown that approximately 40,000 storm clouds occur daily in the world (Schonland, 1950). Unexpectedly, every single forest fire caused by lightning causes on average a greater burned area than that caused by humans (Ahrens, 2013). Most forest fires triggered by lightning occur during the summer, in the early evening and late afternoon. Spontaneous combustion occurs when a fire is started by lightning on dry fuel such as leaves. These dry fuels are the building blocks that allow fire to spread throughout the forest. The leaves are easy to ignite due to the lower water content than those stored in tree trunks and branches. This condition occurs especially during dry seasons where the rate of transpiration is high and is not balanced by the rate of water absorption. Therefore, these plants can be very flammable due to low water content. According to British Columbia (n.d.), another natural forest fire factor is weather. The big three......middle of paper......eo Camphor / Brunei Teak. Retrieved from http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/31301-Trees-of-Singapore-Botanical-GardensGönner, C. (2000). Causes and impacts of forest fires: a case study in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. International Forest Fire News (IFFN) n. 22, April 2000, pages 35–40. Retrieved from http://www.fire.uni-reiburg.de/iffn/country/id/id_24.htm.Kimmins, J.P. (2004). Forest Ecology: A Foundation for Sustainable Forest Management and Environmental Ethics in Forestry (3rd ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.Rolph, G. (2013). More than a dozen fires are burning in south-west Queensland, many of them sparked by lightning. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-14/storms-to-accompany-change-as-heat-wave-ends/4463428Schonland, B.F.J. (1950). The flight of lightning. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.