Forests Under Expanding Wildfire

Starting from the forest fire season, about 5,000 wildfires have been registered in Russia. According to the Federal Forestry Agency (Rosleskhoz), 4,852 fires were registered as of 21 April, starting from the beginning of the fire season. Actually, this is seven times more that last year (in 2007, 723 fires were registered as of 21 April). The total area burnt for this period is 152,884 hectares (in comparison with 5,994 ha in 2007). Emergency regimes have been introduced in Chelyabinsk and Amur regions and in Zabaikalskiy Krai; the entrance to forests by foot and on wheels is prohibited. Rosleskhoz characterizes the news about the fire situation as “hot”.

According to the environmental organizations, the forest fires may be prevented provided the following measures:

- rehabilitation of forest guard weakened by the forest reforms;
- coordination of activities of multiple agencies and structures responsible for wildfire fighting;
- creating country-wide opportunities for early identification of fire spots;
- updating equipment of the entities responsible for the wildfire fighting.

According to the official statistics, the total number of wildfires in 2007 was 16.8 thousand. The burned over areas were 1,040.8 thousand ha, including 708.4 thousand ha of forest lands.

However, according to the independent organizations, from 10 to 40 million ha of forests suffer from fires in Russia every year. These figures were obtained from analysis of satellite imagery for the previous 15 years. The number of wildfires grows each consecutive year due to the global climate change. Fires, in their turn, entail further climate change and influence the weather at the regional level. Sustainable high atmospheric pressure zones appear in the places where vast wildfires were observed. Greenpeace believes that these zones prevent rainy cyclones from entering the burning areas.

Inhouse information.