  Magnetic field-line reconnection is a universal plasma process responsible
for the conversion of magnetic field energy to the plasma heating and charged
particle acceleration. Solar flares and Earth's magnetospheric substorms are
two most investigated dynamical systems where magnetic reconnection is believed
to be responsible for global magnetic field reconfiguration and energization of
plasma populations. Such a reconfiguration includes formation of a long-living
current systems connecting the primary energy release region and cold dense
conductive plasma of photosphere/ionosphere. In both flares and substorms the
evolution of this current system correlates with formation and dynamics of
energetic particle fluxes. Our study is focused on this similarity between
flares and substorms. Using a wide range of datasets available for flare and
substorm investigations, we compare qualitatively dynamics of currents and
energetic particle fluxes for one flare and one substorm. We showed that there
is a clear correlation between energetic particle bursts (associated with
energy release due to magnetic reconnection) and magnetic field
reconfiguration/formation of current system. We then discuss how datasets of
in-situ measurements in the magnetospheric substorm can help in interpretation
of datasets gathered for the solar flare.
