Forest fires are a regular problem for many countries, including Russia. We decided to check several popular myths about forest fires.
More recently, in early May 2023, fires in the Kurgan region Trued The lives of 21 people left more than one hundred inhabitants without housing. And last year in Russia, the fire affected 34,000 km2that is comparable to the territory of states such as Belgium or Armenia. In Europe, the problem of fires is also acute: there in 2022 burned out The territory comparable in size to Montenegro. Specialists Fearthat 2023 can become even worse. According to the World Wildlife Fund* (WWF) for 2000–2016, on average every year in the world are forest fires Covered territory of 3.4 million km2, that is, more area of the whole India.
Content of the article
- Most forest fires arise due to natural causes
- The use of aviation is the most effective way to combat forest fires
- Burning dry grass in the spring and selective deforestation help to prevent fires
- The forest is set on specifically to hide illegal deforestation
- Forest fires arise due to self-flaming of peat, which can burn at a depth of many meters
- Not all fires need to be stewed
Most forest fires arise due to natural causes
Quite often, “guilty” in fires prescribe natural phenomena. So, for example, in the fires of 2022 in the Ryazan region, local authorities "They accused" A dry thunderstorm, that is, a zipper, after the blow of which there was either no rain at all, or it was insignificant. Greenpeace experts doubted such a version, since “no thunderstorms and other natural phenomena in the area were recorded,” and Made The conclusion is that, most likely, people are to blame.
There are only three natural or natural reasons for which a fire can occur: a volcanic eruption, a meteorite fall and a dry thunderstorm. If we talk about the middle zone of Russia and Siberia, no eruptions a few In recent years, volcanoes have not happened there about the fall of meteorites, which led to any vast fires. But thunderstorms in these regions occur quite often, but several factors should take place for a fire. Volunteer movement "Voluntary Firefighters" Describes This situation: “Lightning falls into a high-standing tree on a mountain or a hill, and after either there is no rain (due to the strong heated hot weather, the rain evaporates without reaching it), or the rain is very weak. The fire on the tree goes down, goes into the roots and after a few hours or days can develop into a fire. Such cases are most specific for places where there are no people. ” By data Federal Agency for Forestry of the Russian Federation (Rosleskhoz), in different years only 10% to 27% of fires arose due to dry thunderstorms. In turn, Greenpeace He thinksthat 90% of forest fires in Russia occur due to the fault of man. Similar data in the USA: by statistics Institute of Insurance Information, reason for 85% of forest fires - actions of people.
At the same time, hot weather itself cannot become the reason for the fire. In order to make the grass light up from unfortunate sunlight, Required The surface heating is up to at least 300 ° C. If the sun heated our planet to such temperatures, then forest fires would be the last problem of mankind. At the same time, dry grass really lights up extremely easily - a sufficiently unable cigarette so that this happens (a smoldering cigarette has Temperature 300–420 ° C).
Thus, both Russian and foreign experts agree that most fires are anthropogenic, that is, arising due to human actions, and not natural phenomena.
Not true
The use of aviation is the most effective way to combat forest fires
Personnel with airplanes breaking into puffs of smoke from the fire and dropping thousands of liters of water on it, Look Extremely impressive. From a household point of view, such extinguishing seems effective, because Responsible Tourists diluted by them in the forest is also a bonfire Pour water. Information About the fact that this or that fire Arrived Aviation, often divided The media, creating the audience in the feeling that now the fire will certainly be extinguished.
The extinguishing from the air occurs according to this algorithm: the aircraft picks up water, and then, having reached the place of fire, pours it to a burning forest. However, most often to fly up exactly to the edge of the fire so that the water falls into the right place and delayed the fire is almost impossible. To ensure the maximum accuracy of reset, the aircraft should go at an extremely low altitude, and in most cases, the smoke and turbulence caused by the ascending streams of hot air interferes with this. The fight against fires with the help of aviation is a financially more cost action than extinguishing from the Earth, to which volunteers can also join.
Grigory Kuksin, head of the fire project of the Russian branch Greenpeace, Lists Disadvantages of fire extinguishing with aviation. Firstly, the aircraft is capable of pouring water only a small section of the fire edge-“a helicopter is enough to attach about 30–70 m, the discharge from the BE-200CHS is about 350 m, but with the IL-76-by 750 m”, that is, it is not about the complete liquidation of the fire in this area, but only about the imposition of the extension of the fire.
Secondly, the zone of use of such aircraft is significantly limited-nearby should be large enough in area, a deep and clean reservoir, from where you can get water for extinguishing. If this method of combating fires is effective in the sewage or Portugal, which was extended along the sea coast, then, for example, in many regions of Russia it is simply impossible to resort to it. Moreover, some models (for example, a modernized IL-76 transporter) are completely unable to refuel from the surface of the sea or lake, and they are brought to the airfield. So Sending Russian aviation (even in the fire season in the Russian Federation) to other countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Montenegro or Turkey) is not a beautiful gesture of international cooperation, but an justified action. To work in fires in Central Russia and Siberia, it would be more appropriate to use helicopters and small aircraft-“sesna”, “Robinsons” and An-2 (popularly called “corn”), which would bring people to the right locations, and also ensure the delivery of water for ground extinguishing.
Thirdly, to coordinate the work of those who extinguish from the ground, and aviation is extremely difficult. Water discharge can be carried out only after ground services will be allotted to a safe distance, and taking into account the fact that water bodies suitable for water can be quite far away, several hours pass until the next arrival of the aircraft. That is, ground services will spend more time on withdrawal and return to the extinguishing zone than to counteract the fire itself. Kuksin says that in Russia aviation is “it is rather a means to calm people than to extinguish fires. People are waiting for a spectacular picture and get it. And on the ground, foresters imperceptibly work, providing real successes in extinguishing. ”
Thus, aviation can really help people in extinguishing fires in coastal areas or the environs of large rivers and lakes. To extinguish forest fires in the middle lane and Siberia, specialized aircraft often cannot use their capabilities to the full, so in these regions it is more appropriate to extinguish fires from the ground.
Half truth
Burning dry grass in the spring and selective deforestation help to prevent fires
Spring burning of dry grass, also known as PALA, - common way management both the private economy and urban. And although Rosleskhoz categorically does not recommend resorting to such measures, in 2023 from this practice They did not refuse The authorities of the Omsk, Kemerovo and Lipetsk regions, as well as Adygea and Tatarstan. Preventive deforestation also called One way to prevent fires. Both approaches are based on controling as many potential “fuel” as possible, thanks to which the fire can capture large territories.
Let's figure it out for starters with spring pallets. In addition to the fact that the smoke coming from them worsens The ecology of cities and villages, and local residents often suffer from respiratory problems, experts agree that the practice itself is not only useless to fight fires, but also harmful. And although visually, after the arson of last year’s grass, it may seem that fresh has risen faster, this is a fraud of vision - just on black land young green shoots More noticeablethan if they sprouted through a layer of last year's foliage.
The ash formed as a result of a fire does not fertilize the soil. On the contrary, by words Anatoly Razyakov, the annual candidate of agricultural sciences, the annual “burning of grass and shrubs impoverishes the soil and worsens its structure-after three to five years it degrades and becomes less fertile.” Volunteer movement "Voluntary Firefighters" also Turns Attention to the fact that during preventive burning, masonry and places of nesting of birds, newborn hare, hedgehogs, toads, frogs, many insects, their larvae, dolls, as well as rainworms can burn out. All this negatively affects the environmental situation.
The head of the forest department of the Russian branch of Greenpeace Alexei Yaroshenko Curses The following data: “The Amur Region abandoned the mass profits. As a result of 2019 and 2020, they were relatively calm for the Amur region, like 2021. ” This Confirm And the authorities of the region-according to the Governor of the Amur Region Vasily Orlov, in 2018 there were 2.3 million hectares of forest, in 2019-271,000 hectares, in 2020-172,000 hectares. Among the main causes of positive changes in this area, the official called precisely the rejection of the Pal.
Selective deforestation, apparently, also does not work. Firstly, after it there are stumps and branches, which, having dried up, become flammable fuel. After analyzing 1,500 forest fires that occurred in the West of the United States in 1984-2014, American scientists They came To the conclusion that precisely those areas where the level of forest use was more affected, that is, preventive cutting were also carried out. Secondly, supporters of this practice believe that it helps to preserve rare species of animals and birds by saving their habitat from fire, but scientific data this Do not confirm. Animals and birds, on the contrary, extract The benefits from the burned forest - for example, to predators in such conditions it is easier to find food for themselves.
Thus, there are no significant benefits from preventive spring follicles or deforestation in dangerous areas. The burning of dry grass in the spring will rather lead to a fire than to prevent it, and at the same time destroy the ecosystem. Cutings are also ineffective, because in such territories, as a result, more large -scale fires arise as a result.
Not true
The forest is set on specifically to hide illegal deforestation
"Black lumberjacks" along with "black transplantologists»Regularly fall into the news: the media reports about their activities in Buryatia, Krasnodar Territory, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk And Tomsk areas. It is believed that they can mask their crimes with forest fires.
Those who carry out the illegal cutting of the forest are popularly called "black lumberjacks." However, according to ecologists, their role in the destruction of forests is insignificant - Alexei Yaroshenko from Greenpeace Evaluates Damage to 10% of all the ruin of forests. Most of the cut-off from which the forests suffer, it is impossible to call black ones “black”, most often there are any permits of their organizers, so it would be more correct to consider these people “gray lumberjacks”. For example, indicative story Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk Region Yevgeny Bakurov. British public organization Earthsight in 2021 found outthat the politician cut off healthy trees, passing them for patients, and sold the wood of IKEA. According to investigators, 4 million trees (almost 15,000 hectares) fell under the ax, and the deputy due to this Earned 18.5 billion rubles. Earthsight found that from this illegally prepared IKEA wood, it most likely produced goods of the popular children's line of Sundvik, including chairs, tables, beds and wardrobes, as well as the Fleet Puppet House. According to the calculations of the British organization, every two minutes in the world the goods of the famous Swedish company were purchased from Russian materials of “dubious” origin.
The second most popular "gray" scheme Describes WWF expert Nikita Debkov: “Suppose, a plot is leased, where there are 200 cubic meters of birch per hectare according to the documents. But these are old measurements: over time, the forest has grown, and in fact there are 300 cubic meters per hectare. As a result, an unaccounted for a form is formed, which is safely cut and taken out. According to our data, from the total volume of the drunk forest in Russia, approximately 20-30% is non -taught. ”
Greenpeace agree The fact that the main problem is not illegal cutting: in 2021, "most of the new fires, which can still be determined where and how they began, arose on [legal] cuts." Experts believe that the main problem is a violation of logging techniques, when workers do not take out the so -called “forested residues” - chips, branches and small pieces of trees, and burn them in place.
Moreover, the fire will not hide the cutting of the forest, because instead of charred and fallen trees, the charred stumps will remain at the site of the fire. For example, this is what the forest burned in 2021 looks like in Siberia after extinguishing a fire.
But the burnt forest around Lake Baikal.
Thus, “black lumberjacks” are not the biggest danger to forests and not the main cause of fires. Firstly, no fire in principle will be able to hide cutting down, in the photographs of forests after real fires, the surviving tree trunks are clearly visible, and not hemp in their place. Secondly, there are not so many illegal cut -als that would have to be hidden in this way. Most of their organizers register the deforestation officially, while giving out a healthy forest for a sick or the wrong real number of trees in the territory of interest.
Not true
Forest fires arise due to self-flaming of peat, which can burn at a depth of many meters
They write about the possible spontaneous combustion of peat RIA "News" And "Satellite Belarus", and regional portals in different years called its cause of forest fires in Cherepovets, Miass, Chuvashia And Irkutsk region. It is also believed that peat can form large burning channels, leaving deeper - for example, stories about how some people fell into such a channel to a depth of 50 m.
To begin with, 50 m is an absolutely prohibitive figure (for comparison, height Nine -story buildings - about 30 m). Average The depth of peat fire, according to the Aviation Service, It is 1.5 m. Deeper than this mark already can Landwater is located, so foci of more than 2 m depth can only be where unnecessary accumulations of peat are stored or the embankments of railways are made from it. At the same time, peat is really capable burn out From the inside, forming voids (experts call them programs), into which both a person and a technique can fail.
Formally, peat can really self -load, Mark Forest fire specialists. To do this, it must already be mined from the ground, crushed, composed in a special way in caravans or bacters (the so -called briquettes for transportation), and then with humidity, equal 35%placed in the sun. In fact, this situation is now extremely unlikely - already in Soviet times, for which Came The peak of the development of the peat producing industry, a system of monitoring the places where these caravans appeared. In the 1980s, gas became the main fuel, and peat production enterprises began to close. By data Organizations "Voluntary Fire Firefighters of the Central Region", most previously laid caravans have already been exported or burned. Therefore, today the main cause Peat fires are again a person’s actions, for example, throwing out of non -permanent cigarettes or Spring Pal.
A peat fire is dangerous not only by the fact that someone can fail in programs, but also because he Maybe To become the reason for the forest fire, as well as hide underground and worry there in the winter, continuing their destructive activities. It was burning peat bogs that caused the smoke of Moscow and the Moscow region in 2010. By estimates specialists, then, due to smog and heat, mortality increased by 36% (more than 10,000 excess deaths), and thousands of animals and birds were also killed.
Thus, the spontaneous combustion of peat can really happen, but in nature there should be many conditions for this: peat must be mined, chopped, laid in caravans and placed under the sun's rays with certain humidity. In almost all peat fires of recent years, a person is to blame. Stories about the failures under the ground of people or technology for many meters due to burnt peat, although they rely on the existing in reality, are usually greatly exaggerated.
Most of the untruth
Not all fires need to be stewed
Often officials, justifying for insufficient fighting with large -scale fires, Mentionthat they began in areas where the extinguishing is not necessarily, and also claim that fires - Natural natural phenomenon. So, for example, in 2019 Specked The governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander the SSS: “If we have cold weather in the winter and a blizzard occurs, it does not occur to anyone to drown the icebergs to be warmer. <...> The matter is not only in the government, the fact is that this is a common natural phenomenon, to fight with which it is pointless, or maybe even somewhere harmful. ” From their words it may be the impression that you need to extinguish only those fires that directly threaten people.
In 2015 in Russian legislation Introduced Concept The control zones - territories where forest fires are allowed not to extinguish “in the absence of a threat to settlements or objects of the economy in cases where the predicted costs of extinguishing a forest fire exceed the predicted harm that can be caused to them.” Greenpeace reportsthat "in practice, forest management bodies consider zones of control as ungunded territories, within the borders of which fires can not only be extinguished, but also not taken into account - at least in operational reports." Approximately 45% of the total forest fund of the Russian Federation belongs to such zones. But does this mean that you really do not need to extinguish such fires?
The term “control zone” itself sounds as if officials in a special way control fires in these territories, and do not allow fire to burn uncontrollably. However, in practice, fires there most often occur precisely in the sense that response services intervene only when settlements outside this zone begin to suffer from burning. In particular, in 2022, smoke from fires in control zones in the Khabarovsk Territory Covered Yakutsk. Moreover, Notes Grigory Kuksin from Greenpeace, there are territories where settlements and the roads significant for the region fell into the control zone. This is easy to verify on your own, having studied the map of the control zones from the official site Aviation Guide and comparing it with Google cards.
Moreover, fires are not only a risk for the settlements directly affected by fire. As mentioned above, the dense could cause excess deaths in cities and villages located many kilometers from the place of fire. In addition, a burning forest is a significant Exhaust greenhouse gases, because of which global warming occurs in many ways. And a hot and dry climate, although it cannot cause a fire, Promotes The spread of fires over even greater distances.
Moreover, in Russia, as Mark Greenpeace experts, yet there are no budgetary means or technical capabilities to extinguish absolutely every forest fire. Ecologists offer to gradually reduce control zones and begin to extinguish at least those fires from where smoke can come to settlements or which pose a threat to reserves and national parks. For comparison, in the USA Do not extinguish Only 0.4% of all the fires arising.
Thus, fires not only destroy forests, but also negatively affect people's health, including those living at a considerable distance from the territory covered by fire. Moreover, a forest fire is a source of greenhouse gases, which, in turn, stimulate global warming, contributing to a faster and large -scale spread of fire in the forests. Environmentalists agree that humanity must try to extinguish as many arising forest fires as possible, leaving less than 1% of forests freely. However, in Russia, the question of “extinguishing or not to extinguish” most often answers not from the perspective of caring for nature, but based on the volume of the allocated budget financing.
Most of the untruth
Image on the cover: Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay
*Wwf recognized by the Russian authorities in the agent.
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