The Ministry of Forestry named the most fire-hazardous regions of Belarus
In an interview with a BELTA correspondent, First Deputy Minister of Forestry Alexander Dragun spoke about the most fire-hazardous regions of Belarus.
Gomel and Brest regions suffer the most from fires. Last year, out of 593 fires, 239 occurred in the territory of the Brest State Forestry Enterprise Association and 132 in the territory of the Gomel State Forestry Enterprise Association. In terms of total area, the situation is similar: out of 454.7 hectares of affected state forest fund lands, 183.3 hectares were in the Brest region and 128 hectares in the Gomel region. The fewest forest fires were recorded in the Vitebsk region – 13 fires.
"Transboundary fires traditionally pose the greatest threat. Now, by decision of the emergency commission, we have been instructed to study the readiness for the fire-hazardous season not only of our forestry enterprises but also of other legal entities engaged in forestry," said the First Deputy Minister.
The most fire-hazardous direction is the border with Ukraine. "Due to the ongoing special military operation, the Ukrainian side objectively pays less attention to the fire-prevention arrangement of forests. Moreover, all our attempts to establish cooperation to ensure the safety of the forest fund are ignored, so we have to rely solely on our own efforts to 'catch' fires coming from the other side and stop them promptly right at the border," he noted.
Last year, there were also threats of transboundary fires when specialists from the Shumilino forestry enterprise of the Vitebsk region on the border with the Russian Federation arrived at the scene of a fire. "We detected a fire on Russian territory and did not wait for it to spread to our lands. We organized cooperation with a unit of Rosleskhoz and helped to eliminate the emergency situation on their territory. It is easier for us to help a neighbor eliminate an emergency than to deal with it on our own territory later," Alexander Dragun recalled.
The full text of the interview will be released on the news feed and posted on the BELTA website.
Source: belta.by