The best regions have been determined at wildfire season end
During the wildfire season 2016, 11.02 thousand wildfires have been recorded on the territory of the Russian Federation, of which 10.09 thousand fires – on the territory of the forest reserve which is 1.2 thousand wildfires less than in 2015. The total area covered by fire in 2016 amounted to 2.4 million hectares which is below the average five-year rates by 1.5 times.
On the territory of the forest reserve the area covered by fire amounted to 2.2 million hectares, while in 2015 the fire covered 2.6 million hectares. In 2016, the damage caused by forest fires was reduced by 3.8 times, and according to preliminary data is 15 billion rubles.
The most difficult wildfire situation was in the Irkutsk Region where 1220 fires on the area of 668.8 thousand hectares were suppressed, and in the Trans-Baikal Territory – 619 fires on the area of 276.8 thousand hectares.
In the ranking of firefighting success the first place rightly takes the Krasnoyarsk Region. Despite the wildfire situation extremely difficult in respect of weather conditions, when for more than 60 days there were no significant precipitations, while there is the largest number of wildfires in Russia, 1462 fires have been suppressed, the Krasnoyarsk Region is fourth by area covered by fire – 214.2 thousand hectares. In addition, the region was able to cope with wildfires using its own resources, with no help of the Federal Reserve.
The wildfire showings have been improved compared to the average five-year data in the following regions:
Republic of Altai – 10 fires on the area of 34 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 93 times);
Republic of Tyva- 76 fires on the area of 3 080 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 21 times);
Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) – 157 fires on the area of 14 879 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 38 times);
Tyumen Region – 94 fires on the area of 354 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 11 times);
Omsk Region – 129 fires on the area of 924 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 30 times);
Rostov Region – 2 fires on the area of 1 hectare (area covered by fire has decreased 637 times);
Kurgan Region – 247 fires on the area of 523 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 9 times);
Republic of Khakassia – 29 fires on the area of 462 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 10 times);
Samara Region – 21 fire on the area of 12 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 6 times);
Penza Region – 18 fires on the area of 11 hectares (area covered by fire has decreased 9 times);
In 11 constituents of the Russian Federation no wildfires have been recorded – in the Belgorod Region, the Kursk Region, the Lipetsk Region, the Orel Region, the Ryazan Region, the Tula Region, the Astrakhan Region, the Republic of Chechnya, Karachay-Cherkessia, Ingushetia and Tatarstan. In 10 regions the area covered by fire was less than 10 hectares – in the Kaliningrad Region, the Voronezh Region, the Kaluga Region, the Smolensk Region, the Rostov Region, the Stavropol Region, the Republic of Adygea, Mordovia, Udmurtia and Chuvashia.
The Belgorod Region, the Kursk Region, the Chechen Republic, the Republic of Tatarstan where for the last 3 years have been not a fire and the Tula Region on the territory of which the area less than 1 ha was burnt should be expressly indicated.
“Today the powers to protect forests from fires are fully delegated to the regions, and of course, it is the area of governors’ responsibility. Unfortunately, in many regions – in the Irkutsk Region and the Republic of Buryatia – it became a bad tradition to bring the situation up to the emergency. It is also necessary to take a note of the practice to introduce unreasonable emergency regime. For example, in 2016 in the Republic of Buryatia the emergency regime remained in force 104 days, and not always there were good grounds for this,” said the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation – the Head of the Federal Forestry Agency Ivan Valentik.