The forest fires that raged across Greece last week are prompting some to look more closely at the contribution of such fires to global warming. While global warming may be leading to more forest fires, as Grist notes, the fires then accelerate global warming themselves. As Reuters says, the Greek fires are nothing compared to those burning in the Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia. In fact, in a worrying if neat comparison, the news wire says an area of forest the size of Greece disappears every year, with deforestation accounting for 18% of carbon dioxide emissions.

The Independent says environmentalists might actually be partly to blame, due to conservation practices which discourage controlled burning and result in a massive build up of combustible material. While non-human sources of carbon dioxide are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, according to Reuters, it’s not clear what happens if fires turn out to be arson, as some suspect is the case in Greece. In a small piece of positive news, the Indonesian government setting up a ‘Forestry Eight’ group of countries to look at global warming (Antara news).

Image: Land clearing fires in Indonesia / NASA