Forest fires in Russia 2010. How it was.
Forest fires in Russia 2010. How it was.
Not long ago, the state of emergency was lifted in the last and most affected region of central Russia — the Ryazan region. Its withdrawal from the Urals will begin soon. The withdrawal of the Russian Emergencies Ministry group has begun from the Volga and Central Federal Districts. The extinguished areas are being transferred to the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments, forestry agencies in the constituent entities, departments and owners. The abnormally hot, dry summer, together with the «human factor» at the end of July, led to a tragedy in a number of regions of Russia.
According to official statistics, more than 7,000 natural fires were active in the Central, Volga, and Ural Federal Districts, covering a total area of over 430,000 hectares. The fire damaged 134 settlements, eight of which were completely destroyed. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from the danger zones.
More than 50 people, including firefighters fighting the fire, died. By decree of Dmitry Medvedev, a state of emergency was declared in the Voronezh, Vladimir, Moscow, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod regions, and in the republics of Mari El and Mordovia. Experts say that Russia has never seen such severe fires, although up to 1 million hectares of forest area burns out in the country every year, but the consequences of the fires of this hot summer were severe.
What did officials say?
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev noted that «the most serious lessons must be learned from everything that happened.» It seems that within the framework of this «educational process» that has already begun, it will hardly be possible to bypass the topic of developing an effective model for managing and exploiting forest resources, or, in other words, finding a good «owner» for the Russian forest.
«The entire emergency response system required colossal efforts to bring the situation under control and extinguish most of the forest fires. I would compare this to military action «in a war like in a war, there were victories and defeats,» Shoigu said.
The words of the Director of the Civil Defense Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Shaposhnikov “This year the situation was characterized by the fact that fire storms arose in the centers of fires, which never happened in previous years /1972, 1981 and 2002/, therefore it was not possible to avoid human casualties.”
The head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, Sergei Shoigu, gave a clear example. «In the Nizhny Novgorod Region, fires from the ground turned into crown fires, and their speed was 100 meters per minute. In six hours, we had a fire covering an area of 86 thousand hectares. The force of the air flow tore trees out by the roots like a hurricane, only it was a fiery hurricane. The flames crossed a lake 200 meters wide like a puddle,» he said.
As the head of the Aviation Department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, Rafael Zakirov, said, due to the heavy smoke, it was sometimes necessary to extinguish the fires «by touch, using coordinates.»
On business.
In accordance with the latest version of the Forest Code, the main powers in the field of forest conservation and protection have been delegated to the constituent entities of the Federation, but the forces of federal ministries and departments, primarily the Russian Emergencies Ministry, as well as the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were involved in the fight against forest and peat fires.
Volunteers.
Thousands of volunteers helped firefighters fight the fires. As soon as the fire elements «swung into full force» in early August, the total force was increased more than threefold in a few days, amounting to over 166,000 people and over 26,500 pieces of equipment, including 49 aircraft.
Support from outside.
This is the first time in the history of Russia that foreign forces were involved in extinguishing fires. Almost 500 foreigners fought the fire. Aviation from Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Italy, France, two combined detachments from Ukraine, detachments from Belarus, Armenia, Bulgaria, Poland and the Latvian task force worked.
These are representatives of those countries that the Russian Emergencies Ministry has repeatedly helped in eliminating the consequences of various emergencies, including fighting fires.
Russian Emergencies Ministry Forces.
But the main burden in the fight against fire fell on the aviation of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which made almost 2 thousand sorties, dropping more than 73 thousand tons of fire extinguishing liquid on the fires. And the situation with the fires was turned around before the long-awaited cold weather and rains, they were extinguished in 19 regions. More than 4.5 thousand settlements were protected from the fire. Not a single strategic facility was damaged by the fires. For the first time, robotics of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were used to extinguish fires near nuclear centers.
Food for thought.
The damage from the fires has not yet been calculated, but earlier the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations told journalists that the costs of overcoming the consequences of the fires together with funds for the construction of housing for the victims will exceed 12 billion rubles.
In the post-Soviet years, three main forest laws have been adopted in Russia, replacing each other — the Fundamentals of Forest Legislation of 1993, the Forest Code of 1997 and the Forest Code of 2006. The latter document extended the decentralized model of forest management to the entire country. Almost all powers, including those for the protection of forests remaining in federal ownership, previously under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, have been transferred to the regions, whose administrations have been entrusted with the responsibility of extinguishing forest fires, for which, by the way, funds were allocated from the federal budget.
In preparation for this reform, already at the end of 2004, the extremely dilapidated «Soviet» forest protection system based on the so-called «bypasses» of forest areas assigned personally to employees of the state forest protection service was finally abolished. There were officially no foresters, and Rosprirodnadzor, which inherited the powers of forest protection, never acquired an institution of inspectors comparable in scale to the «economy» of the largest forest country in the world. Several hundred inspectors throughout the country could not change the fact that the forests were effectively ownerless, and therefore defenseless. There was no one left to monitor the arrangement and maintenance of clearings, clear lands of dead wood and fallen trees, or somehow control and admonish the population relaxing in the forests and groves about fire-hazardous procedures. The powers in the area of forest protection and conservation delegated to the subjects of the Federation were financed from the federal budget this year in the amount of 2.2 billion rubles. However, «when things got hot», in many regions not even traces of these investments were found. Of course, there were also examples to the contrary.
Tatarstan has done a good preventive job, organizing round-the-clock reconnaissance in the forests, and when fires were discovered, the authorities sent forces there and suppressed the fires. It is easier to prevent a fire than to put it out. When the situation gets out of control, it means that something was overlooked, and it is necessary to involve huge forces, and in this situation, the forces of the Federal Forestry Agency were not enough. Every day in Tatarstan, up to 200 fires were extinguished and the situation there did not get out of control. But the example of effective forest protection under the jurisdiction of Kazan is rather an exception. Of course, the task is not limited to clearings in the forests and fire ditches around villages.
Conclusions.
The fiery summer once again reminded us of the need to involve the capabilities of the entire society in solving such vital problems as protecting forests and, ultimately, ourselves from the terrible elements. In addition to the most important educational function, the creation of a system of volunteer fire brigades in remote settlements and at enterprises can dramatically reduce the degree of fire threat. «Without volunteers, we cannot cope with a territory like ours, but for these volunteers we must find a way to light, passable, effective and affordable equipment, and this equipment will appear when we really have an insurance system,» Shoigu noted, comparing the Russian situation with the German experience of volunteer fire brigades.
For the most part, insurance companies are engaged in equipping volunteer fire units, purchasing equipment, and creating the units themselves, because it is much more profitable for them to create such a unit in this locality than to pay out gigantic insurance amounts for fires.
What to do?
In connection with this, the Russian Emergencies Ministry has prepared a bill «On Voluntary Fire Protection», which provides special benefits for volunteer firefighters. The first decisions on the results of the «fire campaign» have already been made. In particular, it was decided to re-equip the fire departments of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, whose function is to extinguish fires in populated areas and cities, and also to equip helicopters of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia with water-draining devices.
We, ordinary citizens, can only hope that this will not be the end of the lessons of summer 2010, that the lessons will be taken into account and the right conclusions will be made.