Our Environment Contents

2. Impacts

Using fire

Fire

The discovery and use of fire in neolithic times allowed for huge developments in human society, but it also created environmental changes and problems. It was a piece of good luck (rather than considered judgement) that grasslands - which were created following by burning forests to clear grazing areas - developed soils generating some of the world's most valuable agricultural land. Elsewhere however, luck ran the other way. Barren hill slopes started to erode, streams were polluted with burned materials and debris from erosion, and swamps and marshes were created.

How can fire change the environment?