In Russia, the number of trees killed in forest fires has decreased to a minimum in the last 10 years

In Russia, since the beginning of 2022, the share of trees destroyed in forest fires has decreased by about 2.5 times compared to 2021 and dropped to the lowest values ​​since 2011. This was reported by the press service of Roslesinforg.

According to the forest inventory organization, the fire destroyed 57,000 hectares of forest, which is less than 1% of the area covered by it.

According to the director of Roslesinforg, Pavel Chashchin, fires do not completely burn out forests, often damaged trees are restored without human help in about two years.

In 2021, the largest forest fires were recorded in Yakutia, where the fire spread over more than 6.7 million hectares. As noted in the organization, the flames destroyed a little more than 2 thousand hectares of forest, which amounted to 0.0003% of the entire burning area.

In terms of the scale of tree losses from fires in 2021, Karelia was the leader, where 8.8 thousand hectares of forest burned down. In second place was the Chelyabinsk region with 4.8 thousand hectares of burnt forests.

Roslesinforg noted that prompt response helps to save forests from fire. In 2022, 80% of forest fires were extinguished on the first day after detection.

Large-scale forest fires are becoming more and more common. As scientists and ecologists recognize, most often the direct cause of this is the person himself. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the human factor is the cause of a forest fire in 88–98% of cases. Knowing the precautions is necessary for everyone who wants to come to the forest for a picnic, a walk, or even for the sake of passing through a forest road. The Ministry of Emergency Situations gives recommendations on how to behave in the forest so as not to cause a forest fire and what to do if you notice a fire.

On the one hand, fires occur when people carelessly handle fire, but on the other hand, the cause is a much larger problem — global warming, as a result of which increased droughts and heat have been observed in many countries of the world for many years. Forest fires occur in Russia usually from April to October, in other countries the season is wider. Only in rare cases does a forest fire occur due to natural causes — due to dry thunderstorms, lightning strikes, spontaneous combustion of peat bogs, etc.

For the past four years, Russia has been running a program of the federal project “Preservation of Forests” of the national project “Ecology”, aimed at restoring dead and damaged forests after a fire and also due to deforestation. Each year, employees of regional forestry ministries and volunteers plant millions of seedlings of the new forest. Thus, according to the data for 2021, the area of ​​​​reforestation to the area of ​​​​cut down or dead forests was 109.6% — in favor of a green future.

Cover photo: Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation