"In the whole of last year we had only one big fire with an area of 6 hectares. All the others were promptly extinguished. This year there are 123 big fires," the Head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine Yuriy Bolokhovets underlined. In 2022 the total damage to forest fires has already reached UAH 6.9 million, while in the same period last year it was less than UAH 0.5 million, and the year before it was UAH 6.6 billion.

In 70% of cases this year, forest fires are caused by active military operations or by cruise missile fire and mine explosions. This is something we cannot influence during martial law.

A significant area of fires in Kyiv region and Chernihiv region - more than 1.2 thousand hectares - are large fires. The main reason is the mining of forest areas. The enemy has left behind not only thousands of ordinary mines, but also hundreds of special explosive devices that deliberately cause forest fires and make it impossible to extinguish them quickly.

We cannot risk people and go deep into unmined territory where forest fires break out. We are forced to choose the tactic of localizing fires along the perimeter of the fire, preventing the fire from spreading where it has already been cleared.

The remaining 30% of fires are due to human error. Zakarpattya suffers from drought - this factor is superimposed on many people walking in the forest - so hundreds of hectares of burnt forest this year compared to a few hectares last year.

To prevent forest fires, almost 10.6 km of fire breaks and barriers and 28.4 thousand km of mineralized strips have been installed. They have also been tended (104.9 thousand km).

Take care of the forest, friends! Today it is more important than ever before.