Summer fires - disaster, carelessness or crime

published on 7/24/24 12:22 PM

Photo: BGNES

Over the past two weeks, fires in Bulgaria have scorched tens of thousands of hectares of trees, damaged dozens of homes in the Strandzha region and charred entire herds. The massive fires in Sakar and Svilengrad alone have destroyed almost 10,000 hectares of crops. There is nothing left of the great Bulgarian forest that once stretched from Nis to Sofia. At the same time, photovoltaic plants are expanding, even in forested areas.

The centuries-old forests are dwindling, and the young forests need at least 50-60 years to take over their functions. "The way out is to limit the urbanisation of forest areas," says Toma Belev, former deputy minister of ecology and director of the Vitosha National Park.

"We are currently seeing many photovoltaic power plants in violation - in the municipality of Ihtiman, the municipality of Petrich for instance. - Let us try to comply with the Bulgarian Forestry Act, which says that the reduction of existing forests is not allowed in the territory of municipalities where the forest cover is less than 10%. Unfortunately, the law is not respected by the public administration.

A forest that provides drinking water to a community is crucial for the community's quality of life. For several years, many citizens and organisations have been trying to stop logging in the sanitary protection zones, but the companies do not take this into account".

It is particularly important to know that every forest holds water. In coniferous forests, the effect of water retention occurs after the 40th year of afforestation, in deciduous beech forests it occurs between the 20th and 25th year.

"The more forests we have, the more water we have," says the ecologist. He says it is important to protect forests that provide us with drinking water, but also prevent erosion and ensure the safety of settlements. We have to be very careful because a forest is difficult to grow and very easy to destroy.

"There have always been forest fires, sometimes due to natural causes, although in recent times more than 90% of wildfires have been caused by humans, either deliberately or accidentally," says Toma Belev. Now the National Assembly has adopted a declaration, but it is too late. We could have done this 17 years ago, and we would not have had to pray to other nations for help, hoping that there will be no fires in Greece, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and that they will send their machines. Bulgaria is not a poor country. Bulgaria is not a country that cannot foresee the risks to its population, because these risks have been identified, and there has simply been a lack of political will to finally take the decision to buy some of this aerial fire-fighting equipment".

According to Toma Belev, there is no cheaper or quicker way to fight forest fires than to use helicopters or planes to deliver large quantities of water so that when a fire breaks out, it can be extinguished while it is still small. And with the help of an established fire detection system, it is now very easy to detect fires and put them out quickly.

The ecologist rules out logging as the cause of the deliberate fires, as there is no demand for firewood, even though forestry companies have cut prices by 20%.

This year's fires were caused by sheer carelessness. In Petrich and Varna, for example, the fires were started by people burning cables to get at the metal. In the words of Toma Belev, the bigest fire started while cleaning a garden.

At the same time, no one knows that since March, by order of the regional governors, it has been forbidden to light fires in all the country's forests. "Now is the most dangerous time, but you'll see people lighting fires for barbecues, even if you go to Vitosha, because people are used to it," he points out, stressing that the population must also take responsibility.

As for reforestation, this can only take place after a year, when the foresters have cleared the land and prepared it for replanting.

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