Russia is on fire

Who is to blame for forest fires and what we can do about it

We help Greenpeace: the fight against forest fires collected 1 199 201 r needs 1 198,780 r

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I have 20 liters of water behind my back in a random forest fire extinguisher. On the face of a mask, on the head of a helmet, the clothes are non -combustible, with a long sleeve. I'm hot. I walk along the large field of a boat, along which smoke is going on. The sun is not visible. We will jump on the bumps for a long time, jump over the ditches - we try to get to where it burns now. It’s not easy to do with a 20 kilogram behind a 20 kilograms. And grab it on one burning bump. And if there is no laid line or reservoir nearby, then you find yourself without water and you have to go back. Earth smokes under my feet, and peat took up from burning grass. And I recall how recently one official laughed in my face, showing his hands the size of a small hearth and proving that it was a trifle, nonsense and nothing to extinguish there. I recall and curser to myself, because for the extinguishing of a peat fire, which has grown from a small hearth into a huge one, weeks will leave.

This is a short description of only a small episode of extinguishing a large fire on the border of the Moscow and Ryazan regions this summer. It is impossible to compare it with the Siberian, but with the same, in 2010, the smoke of Moscow began. In the same way, it began - shooting at a military training ground led to a fire. That is, in nine years, no one has decided to stop setting to set fire to the land with shells.

Fires in Siberia began with the so -called control zones. These are the territories by which a decision was made - it is not clear why - not to extinguish, but only observe. And it is also believed that in these areas there are no settlements (this is not true, they are there).

Irina Vorobyova photo: from personal archive

Millions of forest hectares are burned annually in Russia. Read! Millions of forest hectares. And they relate to this every year about in any way. Since 2015, the regional authorities have the legal right to do nothing with fires in the control zones at all. After all, if officials decided to extinguish fires, when they were still small, when they could even get to them, this disaster would not have happened. Now the situation is complicated to the limit. The fire went far into the forest, it is already very difficult to get to it, it is even more difficult to put out.

And now I will say things that everyone does not like. The situation should now be saved by people in offices. They must stop with a grin to indicate to the citizens that they had the right not to extinguish. They must stop juggling with numbers in an attempt to prove that last year it burned even more. The responsibility must stop blazing to each other. They must begin to make decisions that will lead to the elimination of the disaster, and not to maintain the budget and positions. No need to pretend that in general everything is in order, but the weather failed. The weather was only a factor, but not a reason.

And here it is important to remember something else. The current disaster was also made by society. Let's call a spade a spade. While there is no smoke in settlements, fire support is minimal. And this work is not at all heroic, it is difficult, painstaking, daily. Do you know why Moscow is not in smoke now? Including because voluntary forest firefighters are constantly monitoring the heaters, compared with a map of peat bogs, they go to check and extinguish (sometimes along with official services, and sometimes without them) small foci at the very beginning. Fire work is a work about petitions and requests to the authorities, about constant prevention, about classes with children, about creating cartoons, about learning volunteers, about the simple “Do not burn grass!” This is all together and gives the result.

Why do you offer us to sign a petition, because we want to go to extinguish! This is the most common reaction to the request to help us to put pressure on power so that they begin to make decisions to save the situation.

We offer you to participate in the extinguishing of fires so that your help is effective and safe. To be a hero and ruffling your head somewhere with calls or calling, but not to participate yourself-this is a story that has never led to anything good. Imagine: you come somewhere (exactly somewhere, because no one of the calling people knows where specifically), from the settlement a fire of 150 kilometers, you can only get there by aviation. Everything, on this your extinguishing ended. And if you were able to get to the fire, then in front of you is a wall of fire, falling trees and a very high fire spread speed. On this, with a high degree of probability, your life will end.

If the authorities knew how to work with volunteers for real, and not just on beautiful forums with flags, everything could be organized. It is very difficult to extinguish the riding forest fires (namely they are now in Siberia), here a person with a bucket will not help. But you can protect the settlements and the parts of the forest so far so far. For this, for example, mineralized stripes are digging, including without the use of heavy equipment. And they are “anneal” from them towards the fire so that there was nothing to “eat” when he comes to this territory. And if the authorities built the work of citizens in this direction, explaining why to dig a moat where it does not burn, and why it is impossible to “eat up” yourself, without the involvement of specialists, could be done by a large fire -fighting work.

Now only truth and actions can help residents of smoky cities and burning forests

That is why we urge you to sign a petition. To tell the truth about the danger of smoke it is very important for the health of those who live in this smoke now. Remember how they lied to us in 2010, that the smoke from fires does not harm health, and the amount of mortality and incidence have seriously increased? We must require constant monitoring of air, accurate, infused data. And people should know what and when to take measures - to limit physical activity, to be less on the street, to do wet cleaning of the house more often, to ventilate the rooms only when smoke passes, and so on.

The forces and means that the state has, can and should now extinguish everything that can be reached. But when you are offered to rejoice in the news that finally the super-male will fly to lose water, wait for the rejoice. This is not a magic wand and not a computer game. Even the largest and most powerful aircraft with a very accurate discharge of water can only moisten the line of spread of fire. And such aircraft cannot be an infinite number. Aviation is suitable for the delivery and evacuation of firefighters, for monitoring and intelligence, but only discharge of water will not cope with such fires.

Now about 5 billion rubles a year are allocated to protect forests from fires in Russia. And this is about 10 times lower than the amount that is really needed. It is necessary to demand that the budget is much larger, this is a very important expense item that will avoid annual disasters.

And the very last one. "Forests are burning constantly - this is how nature is arranged." Let's count. There are three natural causes of fires: a dry thunderstorm, a meteorite fall and a volcanic eruption. All. All other fires are the work of a person. (There was still a paragraph about how the Chinese do not set fire to Russia annually, your neighbors and acquaintances do it, but you still won’t believe me until you see your own eyes.)

All three causes of the natural occurrence of fires are rare, and if only because of them burned, fires would have arisen a thousand times less and I would not write this text. In many regions, fire runs through the same areas every two to three years. This was not laid down by nature, although a person is now its integral part.

There are few voluntary firefighters in Russia, much less than necessary. They need more, and existing your help is needed. Having even subscribed to a small monthly donation - 100, 200, 500 rubles - you will help Greenpis prepare voluntary firefighters and provide them with equipment and protective equipment. So - to save the forests and people who live next to them.

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