Ukraine is unable to cope with the forest fires that have engulfed the country
The Ukrainian state turned out to be unable to resist forest fires, since the corresponding system in the country was destroyed.
This is the opinion of Sergei Zibtsev, professor at the National University of Bioresources and Environmental Management of Ukraine, head of the Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Center (REEFMC), whose opinion is quoted by the Kiev online publication “Zerkalo Nedeli”.
“In recent years, due to irresponsible forest policy, the state system for ensuring the protection of forests from fires in Ukraine has been destroyed,” Zibtsev said.
According to him, such key industry forest fire institutions as the State Enterprise “Ukrgiproles”, where fire-fighting projects were developed, and the Ukrainian State Aviation Forestry Protection Base, which provided prompt information to forestry enterprises about the level of fire danger, have been liquidated or are at the stage of liquidation.
“The centralized system of aviation patrolling of forests has been destroyed. The training of aviation observers and forest fire paratroopers has been discontinued. At the same time, forestry enterprises have not been offered a single new and more modern approach to preventing and extinguishing forest fires. Ukrainian methods and standards for fire safety equipment at forestry enterprises have not been approved,” the professor notes.
In addition, according to REEFMC, the country does not have a system for reliable national recording of the number and area of wildfires. So, in April 2015, a fire destroyed 9,8 thousand hectares in the Lubyanka forestry of the Chernobyl zone, but in the data of the State Emergency Service and in national statistics this is shown as a fire on an area of up to 600 hectares.
“The distortion of fire statistics does not allow us to assess the scale of the problem and make appropriate national forest policy and management decisions at the government level. Moreover, due to false statistics in the international database of wildfires, the situation in our country does not look critical, and therefore, Ukraine cannot count on appropriate technical assistance from the EU,” Zibtsev concluded.
As PolitNavigator reported, forest fires continue to burn in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone and remain uncontained. The fires had recently subsided somewhat due to rain , but have since resumed their growth.
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Ukraine is unable to cope with the forest fires engulfing the country.