India has four of the 34 global hotspots of biodiversity; the Western Ghats, being one of these four, is the hottest of the global biodiversity hotspots due to the high level of endemism as well as human pressures. Disturbances such as wildfires have been a part of these ecosystems for several millennia, initially used during slash and burn agriculture and later for maintaining various ecosystem services. Fires are mainly caused by humans, during the collection of minor forest produce; set by pastoralists, and also due to incendiarism. Fires are a natural part of the ecosystem and are important for recycling nutrients back into the soil, checking the proliferation of invasive species and pests, and for maintaining the functioning of ecosystems. Climate change, land use and land cover change, and fire management practices have substantially altered fire regimes in the Western Ghats. Climatic extremes such as droughts and heat waves have exacerbated disastrous fires in different parts of the globe and similar effects have been witnessed in the Western Ghats. Human-caused land use land cover changes and fire suppression have also resulted in changes in fire regimes in most parts of world and similarly in India. However, despite the importance of wildfires in maintaining ecosystem characteristics, and the increasing links between climate change and increasing wildfire activity, little is known about wildfires in the Western Ghats of India, and it continues to be an under studied topic. Here, we provide a synoptic overview of wildfires, its origins, causes, its ecological characteristics, through the lens of the fire regime, in a focal study area, the Nilgiris landscape, in the Western Ghats.