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Fire ecology is a branch of ecology that focuses on the origins of wildland fire and its relationship to the environment that surrounds it, including both living and non-living elements. The environment surrounding the fire consists of the ecosystem, which has three major characteristics affected by fire (composition, structure, and function). Ecological succession is also a characteristic affected by fire; it is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. It is a phenomenon or process by which an ecological community undergoes more or less orderly and predictable changes following fire.