"All it takes is one spark." Man is responsible for most forest fires
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June 1, 2018, 15:33Latest
A rainless aura can make people happy, but for nature it is often a disaster. Intensive rainfall during storms is not able to provide the forest litter with adequate humidity, and fires occur more and more frequently in forests. Most of them explode through human fault.
- One spark is enough to start a fire. Since the beginning of the year, there have been almost three thousand such fires in Polish forests, of which almost a thousand in the Mazowieckie voivodship - said senior brigadier Paweł Frątczak, spokesman for the State Fire Service. Fire is usually caused by man.
- Half of the fires are the result of arson, while the other half is the carelessness of a man in the forest - said Tomasz Międzyrzecki, deputy forest inspector of the Miękinia forest district in an interview with a TVN24 reporter. He added that only one percent of them explode for reasons other than human activity, such as after a lightning strike.
Big threat
The data presented by the State Forests on Friday at 1 p.m. shows that the fire risk is high in most of the country (red). There are also many regions where the risk is defined as medium (yellow).
Litter humidity in forests is low. “It's under ten percent, so you could say it's the moisture of a sheet of paper. For example, throwing a cigarette butt, lighting a grill and spreading a spark to this litter may cause a great tragedy, i.e. a forest fire - warned Międzyrzecki.
The State Forests remind that when for five consecutive days the litter humidity measured at 9 o'clock is lower than 10 percent, forest districts introduce periodic prohibitions on access to forests.
Monitoring from height
Fire monitoring is carried out, for example, by observations from special towers. One of them is located in Miękinia. It is 33 meters high. Last year, the situation was supervised by a man, this year he was replaced by cameras.
- Cameras located at the top of the tower analyze live if there is any smoke and transmit this information to the alarm and disposition point - said Międzyrzecki. - If we are dealing with dark, black smoke, there is a high probability that the meadows are not burning, but it may be a forest fire - he added.
However, it cannot be ruled out that the smoke has a different origin, for example, it comes from the chimney. Thanks to the cameras, you can zoom in on the image and see what the source of the smoke is.
The most dangerous fires for forests
How to prevent accidental arson? - We must remember that in such a special period, when there is such a high degree of danger, we are not allowed to light fires, grill and throw away cigarette butts in the forest in mid-forest areas, and within a hundred meters from the forests, emphasized Frątczak.
Międzyrzecki believes that fires are the most dangerous threat to forests.
"The forest grows slowly, for a long time," he said. The age of maturity is on average after a hundred years. - A fire can destroy it all within a few minutes - Międzyrzecki summed up.
Listen to the whole conversation with Tomasz Międzyrzecki:
Author: ao / aw / Source: tvn24
Main photo source: State Forests
