It has been recently reported that:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (July 31) called in the military to fight forest fires that have been raging across vast expanses of Siberia for days, enveloping entire cities in black smoke.
Similar efforts have been undertaken in British Columbia last year and many other regions around the world. However most of the time the efforts are pretty much futile, as for example Vancouver was covered in smog for several weeks despite all the efforts and only the start of the rainy season finally put the fires to an end.
The article goes on to mention that:
Environmentalists have warned that the scale of the blazes could accelerate global warming, aside from any immediate effects on the health of inhabitants.
However I'm not sure how this could be related to global warming, given that forest fires raged this planet for tens of millions of years and are thus a perfectly natural occurrence.
Therefore given that putting out forest fires is extremely inefficient and that forest fires are natural, why are governments spending so much efforts in trying to combat them?