Huh, Wildfire is the name of the secret biological facility where the alien lifeform was being studied in The Andromeda Strain.
The Zombie Virus is an extraterrestrial virus intended to wipe out mankind, it was "sent" to earth in a mock crash that occurred in Roswell 1947. Basically the Zombie virus is written to earth human physiology and has genetic code to re-write the brain to turn the infected into disease vectors. It is written to be only blood borne so when the aliens arrive to take over in a decade they don't have to worry about an air borne virus and it will have burned itself out.
The virus reprograms the body to use itself as energy and will keep doing so until it is consumed. Eating living flesh is just a directive programmed into the brain by the virus to help it's spread as a vector, but notice they only eat living or freshly killed flesh that is to prevent your disease vectors from wiping each other out.