A really interesting question -- and I'm not sure I know the answer! Here's what I do know: the solar flares are brief, and localized, pulses of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles from the sun. The emissions from solar flares move at the speed of light, so quickly reach the earth. Fortunately, the earth's magnetic field protects us
from most of these emissions, by deflecting them away from the earth. (The pathway of a charged particle will be altered as it moves through a magnetic field.) The earth's magnetic field itself will be disrupted, producing 'geomagnetic storms' which can disrupt satellite and radio communications.

So that's the quick story, but you'll probably want to know more. I did a couple of quick searches on the internet and found the following sites for your explorations:

Solar Flares & the Sun:
http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/
http://www.astro.uva.nl/demo/sun/kaft.htm
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2683/sunhome.htm

Earth's Magnetic Field
http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/Readme.html

I plugged "solar flares magnetic poles" into the hot new search engine, 'www.raging.com,' and got a lot of good looking hits, including these three:

1. Solar activity can cause cause disruptions of the earth's magnetic field leading to choppy or poor openings.www.hia.net/kjsmith/radio/r3field.htm

2. The Solar Dynamo science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/dynamo.htm

4. The Magnetic Sun --lesson plan #38
Lesson plan on magnetism and solar magnetic phenomena, at high school
level; part of an educational web site on astronomy, mechanics, and space ...
www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Lsun3mag.htm

Well here's probably a good website for solar flares:

http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/

The people who put this website together are scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and they study solar flares all the time.
I won't claim to know much about solar flares, but I can say that they occur in places on the Sun where there are strong magnetic fields, as you will find out when you look at the website. The Earth also has magnetic fields but the Earth is a much tamer place than the Sun.