Come December and the foresters of Indian states gear up to manage annual forest fires, which cause enormous damages to both flora and fauna and are among the major challenges for the survival and growth of forests and wildlife. Considered a good servant and a bad master, these fires are known to be beneficial for the environment when managed under proper supervision and controlled conditions. However, of late, ever-increasing anthropogenic factors, along with global warming consequences, have been influencing these underlying conditions, affecting the frequency and extent of forest fires enormously. So much so, that they have become serious threats not only to forests and wildlife, but also to the already alarming state of climate change at a global level. The excessive droughts, resulting in changes in depleted soil moisture, are not only influencing the growth of existing forests, but also enhancing the aridity of fuel (leaves, twigs and litter) and soil, thereby making them highly prone to fires. In the past, there have been repeated fire incidences in Uttarakhand, which are mainly attributed to the presence of highly inflammable pine needles, coupled with steep slopes. A few unusual incidences in Theni of Tamil Nadu and the Tiger reserve of Bandipur during February-March and this year's incidence of Simplipal Forests have drawn considerable attention of all. According to one study, the anthropogenic climate changes during 1984-2015 in the US contributed to an additional 4.2 million hectares (ha) of forest fire area, which is almost double the forest fire area expected in their absence. In another study, the scientists observed that, between 1979 and 2013, the parts of the globe having more combustible vegetation have witnessed a nearly 108.1 per cent increase of global burnable area from wildfire. Published in Nature, this study also found that the fire season has also increased by nearly 20 per cent in all the continents except Australia during that period. The unabating hotter and drier weather, coupled with anthropogenic factors including our failure to manage natural resources on sustainable lines, has made climate change almost synonymous with a forest fire. And this is the reason for the nearly 13 per cent more fire alerts witnessed during 2020 in India, when compared to 2019. And, this trend is likely to get worse in the coming times, if we fail to address this problem in all seriousness. As observed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the chain of fires occurring especially in Australia and Amazon has worsened and subverted the conservation gains achieved through dedicated and long-lasting efforts undertaken. And the failure of the global communities to take action to control fire would be devastating for our entire planet and the people who live on it. Apart from impoverishing precious global resources, including biodiversity, the forests fires also endanger the health aspect of the people, due to pollution spreading across national borders. This has precipitated the urgency of addressing the challenges and negative impacts of forest fires by countries involving , governmental and non-governmental organisations, including Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), IUCN, etc, which are adopting their multi-pronged strategies and programmes with the involvement of various stallholders in this direction. Contrary to western countries, the forest fires in India, by and large, can be attributed to human-induced factors, among which encroachment and grazing are the most important. Whereas nearly 1.3 million ha of forests are under encroachment, another 78 per cent of forests are subjected to heavy grazing (World Bank, 2005). Having inter-linked the social, economic and political reasons, control of these two problems to protect the forests from these has become a difficult task for the foresters. The latest report of the Forest Survey of India estimates that nearly 21.4 per cent of forest cover in India is prone to forest fires, with north-eastern and central Indian parts being the most vulnerable.