Abstract: Forest fire is an important natural disturbance in forest ecosystems. It releases the carbon sequestrated by forest ecosystems into atmosphere directly or indirectly, affecting carbon budget and carbon balance of forest ecosystems. Therefore, accurate estimate of carbon emissions by forest fires has great significance for scientifically making effective forest fire management decisions, enhancing the carbon sink effect of forest ecosystems, and mitigating the rate of climatic change. In this paper, we illustrated the most recent advances on carbon emissions by forest fires with regard to the following four aspects: 1) forest fire emitted gases containing carbon. 2) factors affecting carbon emissions by forest fires. 3) the models used to estimate carbon emissions by forest fires. 4) the estimation of carbon emissions by forest fires. Based on the issues and problems existing in current researches on carbon emissions by forest fires, future research directions were proposed, including 1) inventory and measurement of burn efficiencies of forest fuels; 2) establishment of spatial database for forest fuel load and fire burn severity; 3) estimate of indirect carbon emissions by forest fires; 4) estimate of carbon emissions by forest fires on the conditions of climatic change.

Key words: soil integrated fertility index, soil fertility, cropland requisition-compensation balance, Yangtze River Delta.