Forest fire disturbance is a special and important ecological factor in forest ecosystems, and it changes nutrient circulation and energy transfer of the ecosystem. Studying the impacts of forest fire disturbance on soil organic carbon (C) in forest ecosystems improves the knowledge of soil C sequestration and C cycle processes in forest ecosystems, which facilitates strategies formulation for scientific and reasonable forest management aiming at slowing down global climate changes. The influencing mechanisms of forest fire disturbance on soil organic C in forest ecosystems has been reviewed in this paper. The mechanisms of forest fire disturbance affecting soil organic C along with C cycle and balance in the forest ecosystems at small or large scale has been analyzed. Response mechanisms of soil labile and inert organic C to different forest fire characteristics such as types and interference intensity were elucidated. In addition, it was elucidated that forest fire affected stability of soil organic C by changing its input and output processes. Based upon above, four ways to improve quantitative study of the impact of forest fire disturbance on soil organic C have been put forth. 1) It is needed to comprehensively compare functional characteristics of different forest fire disturbance types on soil organic C circulation and redistribution process; 2) The potential mechanism of forest fire disturbance changing vegetation structure and hence affecting soil biological community structure along with C circulation in soil should be clarified; 3) By means of quantitative study, the effect of forest fire disturbance on turnover process of soil C pool in forest ecosystem under different spatial and temporal scales could be improved; and 4) impacts of different forest fire disturbance types on stability of soil organic C pool should be intensively studied.