Well, it's good to understand the literal meaning of 버리다 alone first. 버리다 means to throw something away, to be deserted, dumped, discarded, or ruined beyond repair. So it is frequently attached to words, and seems to emphasize that the unfortunate result of something being lost or ruined. For instance, forget is 잊다, but it is often expressed with 잊져 버리다. 태우다 can mean to burn something, but can be expressed using 태워 버리다. Another very common example if 잃다, meaning for you to lose something. It is very often expressed as 잃어버리다.

I sometimes don't like it when people just give me links to read, but there is a lot of info on these two sites: http://www.zkorean.com/dictionary/search_results?word=버리다 and http://dic.daum.net/word/view.do?wordid=kew000030831&q=버리다