2018

The Devastating Fire in Valdgale Rural Territory has Spread to State Forests

Already for several days fire extinguishing works are taking place in Valdgale Rural Territory (Talsi Municipality), and employees of JSC "Latvia's State Forests" (LVM) have also got involved in the elimination of the disaster.

The fire, which initially broke out in a peat bog near the state protected nature reserve "Stiklu purvs", has now reached the forest area. Although the spread of the fire has been stopped in many places, there are still places where the flames keep spreading.

Edijs Leišavnieks, LVM Forest Protection and Fire Safety Manager: "The forest fire broke out in the territory of the peat bog and is currently spreading to a forest managed by LVM. Since the nature reserve of state importance "Stiklu purvi" is also affected, the nature reserve area, the nature park area as well as the regulated zone, which prohibits forestry activities and which is difficult to access with fire-fighting transport, are in flames."

"Currently, with the help of LVM service providers, a wider path is sawn to "catch" fire. Yesterday, an air raid with a drone was made to clarify the fronts and flanks of the fire and to decide upon the next steps. The fire-fighting works are coordinated and managed by the State Fire-fighting and Rescue Service," the expert says.

According to the State Forest Service statistics, 423 forest fires in an area of 265 hectares were extinguished in 2017. In 76% of the cases, these were accidental fires, and in 9% of cases it was arson.

In all forests in Latvia there is still a high risk of fire, therefore we should be extra careful. There is a great risk that every fag-end dropped by a cherry-picker or mushroom-picker may result in a forest fire.

Since its foundation in 1999, Joint Stock Company "Latvia’s State Forests" implementing sustainable forest management has paid one billion euros to state and local government budgets. LVM's economic activities are carried out by maintaining and recovering forests, taking care of nature conservation, recreation opportunities and increasing timber volumes, as well as investing in expanding the forest land and developing forest infrastructure - renovation of drainage systems and forest road construction. The volume of timber in the forests managed by LVM increases by 12 million cubic metres annually.