Over the past week, 56 forest fires covering an area of 84 hectares were recorded in Ukraine. Military actions caused 95% of the fires. This was reported by the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine," UNN writes.
The largest number of fires occurred in the Kharkiv region—14 fires covering an area of 49.4 hectares. The main sites were recorded in the Izium Forestry Division (45.2 hectares), whose territory is regularly subjected to enemy shelling
It is noted that approximately 143,000 hectares of the forestry division's territory are potentially contaminated with explosive objects. Lack of access to forest areas, strong winds, and the detonation of unexploded ordnance created conditions for the spread of fire. Overall, it took six days to extinguish all the fires.
In total, falling fragments of enemy UAVs caused dozens of fires in various regions, covering a total area of 29 hectares.
The largest number of such fires was recorded in the Kyiv region, covering an area of 17.5 hectares. Drone attacks also caused fires in the Chernihiv region (more than 2 hectares), the Sumy region (2 hectares), Zaporizhzhia (2 hectares), and Volyn (2 hectares)
Another minor fire covering an area of 0.01 hectares occurred when fire spread from the territory of an adjacent land user in the Bila Tserkva Forestry Division in the Kyiv region. Minor fires also occurred in the Lviv and Mykolaiv regions—their causes are being established.
With the exception of the Kharkiv region, where firefighting was complicated by the proximity to the combat zone and mining, foresters managed to contain one fire in approximately an hour on average. Thanks to the prompt response of the forest protection service, the average area of one fire was 1.5 hectares.
"Forests of Ukraine" also warned that despite the drop in temperatures, an extreme fire danger level will persist in most regions in the coming days. Due to the prolonged dry weather, the forest floor has dried out severely, so the enterprise urges citizens to refrain from going into the forest.