Problems and prospects of protecting forests from fires

• Published in: Сибирский лесной журнал
• Main Authors: M. A. Sheshukov, A. P. Kovalev, A. M. Orlov, V. V. Pozdnyakova
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch Publishing House 2020
• Subjects: forest combustibility; causes of fires; fire consequences; improvement of the forest fire service of russia; Forestry; SD1-669.5; taiga
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.15372/SJFS20200202; https://doaj.org/article/ab9bdcc4ee65481f8b0a01af149d8848

Forest combustibility rate in Russia is extremely high-thousands of forest fires occur annually. The area covered by fires is measured in millions of hectares, fire consequences and the costs of fire-fighting amount to tens of billions of rubles. Reducing forest combustibility is an urgent task not only for forestry, but also for the whole society, since the taiga burns mainly due to human impact – over 90 % of fires arise from man-made fire sources. The main natural factor that drastically affects the current fire danger in forests is weather conditions, under the influence of which fire hazards can change significantly. Temporal variability of weather conditions, their range and scale are very large, from heavy and prolonged precipitation, often accompanied by devastating floods, to abnormally dry seasons with a period up to 2 months. Fire danger and forest burning, respectively, also vary widely, from complete absence of fires to the extreme and catastrophic wild fires. In this regard, for timely detection and suppression of forest fires and reasonable regulation of the work of the forest fire service, a reliable assessment of the current fire danger in forests (in real time) depends on weather conditions. The characteristics of forest fires in Russia and the damage caused by forest fires over a 5-year period (2014–2018) are discussed in the article, the causes of fires are considered, the system of organizational measures for the development and improvement of forest protection from fires is proposed. An improved by the Far Eastern Forestry Research Institute formula, developed by Professor V. G. Nesterov, is proposed, which is the basis for determining the complex indicator, reflecting the degree of fire danger in forests, depending on weather conditions.