In Brief: Fighting Forest Fires On Sakhalin In 1998

In 1998, forest fires were fought using traditional methods (with the exception of the use of special planes) and proved to be ineffective and often late. Although 1998 was extremely dry and the danger of fires was increasing, necessary human and technical resources were not mobilized in time. As a result, a number of fires took several months to extinguish. For example, fires in the Chamgu river area (Pervomaisky Leskhoz). Apparently, one of the reasons, was underreporting of fire areas, since that's what would provide for underestimating human and technical resources, necessary for combating fires. Such underreporting did not allow to take appropriate measures for fire extinguishing even at the level of the Sakhalin Forest Department not speaking about the Regional Administration and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The suppression of Sakhalin forest fires in many cases was reminiscent of the period of feudal division, since every leskhoz (local forestry unit) was trying to combat fire on its own territory using its own means, without the help and coordination from the region, which oftentimes was insufficient.

In 1998, as in previous years, people didn't observe the rules of forest use, including recreational use. In all of the most fire-damaged Sakhalin regions, control (and restriction) of forest entry was either extremely ineffective or wasn't carried out at all. For example, most forest roads didn't have entry restrictions at all, if they did, 1-2 bottles of vodka would gain entrance to the forest. Monitoring of people using the forest fund areas also was not carried out.

In spite of the worsening fire situation, sometimes wood harvesting in the region did not stop until the fire came very close to the logging sites. Meanwhile, according to information we have, the woodcutting process itself, machinery transfer and transportation of workers to logging sites apparently caused at least several fires in the Smirnykhovsky and Tymovsky regions.

Although some people and equipment from neighboring leskhozes were involved in fire suppression, the mobilization of human forces and machinery was obviously insufficient. While small groups of people were trying to stop forest fires in one leskhoz, workers of a neighboring one (including forest service members) kept harvesting plank timber to be exported to Japan. For example, late in July Gastellovsky leskhoz kept cutting export plank timber of 1-st and 2-nd sorts under the guise of selective sanitary cuttings. Meanwhile, the Chamgu river area, as well as Pervomaysky and Nogliksky leskhozes had a great shortage in machinery (including helicopters), fuel and other petroleum products, people and special outfits for suppressing forest fires. The official reason for this was lack of finances.

The use of anti-fire aircraft is a different story. It is quite expensive to use planes for combating fires and takes very precise and elaborate organization.

In 1998 the BE-12P 'Flying Boat' was used in Sakhalin (the plane is capable of taking six tons of water on board). IL-76-based tanker planes (42 tons cargo capacity) of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and its MI-8 helicopter were used in the area at the end of September.

The BE-12P tanker plane, which flew from the Irkutsk Region, began working in Sakhalin in late July. However it wasn't very effective, because of the lack of fuel. Plus, the area which can be covered by water released from the aircraft, is 100 õ 40 meters at most, thus, the plane is effective for suppression of small fires. Besides, there were some other problems: the aircraft needs large open water to get filled, and sometimes there were no suitable waters for it close to fire epicenters. Normally it would for a fire to be discovered in time which was not often done in the Sakhalin, and as a result, the tanker plane would often be used on its edges. Such practice very often didn't bring expected results. Plus, the plane didn't function until July 24, after it ran aground while being filled with water in the Lunsky gulf July 13. By that time BE-12P was already ineffective against many fires.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations' IL-76 based tanker planes spent a significant part of the possible fires period in Greece, where they proved to be rather effective. Unlike BE-12P, MES's planes can deal with a wider spectrum of fires. However, certain problems occurred here as well (the plane needs special runways, it takes a long time to get refilled, plus fuel, water problems, and high cost, etc.) Late in September and throughout October'98, it was extremely difficult to use these planes on Sakhalin due to smoke from fires and low visibility resulting from the landscape structure. As a result, in a number of cases MES's planes had to be navigated to the fires by a Sakhalin Forest Department helicopter. The effectiveness of IL-76 in this situation was even lower. Thus the use of fire suppression tanker-type aircraft in Sakhalin in 1998 was ineffective due to the following:

• land-based services were unprepared to coordinate land fire suppressing units and aircraft, discover and locate new fire sites and quickly deliver special forces to suppress what is left of a fire after it is covered by water from an aircraft tanker etc.;
• lack of money and technical expertise to utilize expensive and high-tech machinery;
• sometimes planes were ineffective because they were involved too late;
• obstacles for using tanker planes in Sakhalin during the 1998 period of possible fires (water filling problems, low visibility etc.);
• pilots of plane tankers were unfamiliar with local conditions.

In general, most of the fire suppression methods used in Sakhalin in 1998 were land-based. However, very often they were also not effective. "Machines will be unable to get there" - they often said in 1998 concerning those slopes, where five-eight-ten years before fires had been extinguished with machinery (including bulldozers). As a result, many fires, for instance in the Chamginsky Pass area, were passing the small number of anti-fire backstops via steep slopes and ridges. However there are no grounds for accusing people of being passive and not enthusiastic. The conditions they had to work in couldn't be called human. Sometimes they implied risks, even for life. Plus people were either very low-paid or not paid at all.

There is another interesting fact: most of lespromkhozes and forest loggers participated very passively in fire fighting, it was until September 23, when an emergency situation was declared. As for the local population, who had always lived at the expense of lespromkhozes, it did almost nothing to help fight the fire. The best they could do was for the elderly members of the community to describe how in the past "everyone used to partake in fighting fires".

There are several reasons for this. First of all, the region faced a sharp decrease in the number of people involved in the forest sector. Secondly, only several people - heads of several timber companies - profit from timber cutting. And without receiving any compensation, the population doesn't feel obliged to save others' resources and others' property. In addition there's no active anti-fire propaganda conducted on the island.

Additional human forces and equipment was mobilized after the emergency situation was declared on September 23, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations itself got involved in suppressing forest fires, primarily in the vicinity of populated areas. By the end of September, up to 1200 people were involved in fire suppressing. Brigades were established, additional machinery was brought in from a number of wood harvesting firms. The military participated as well. But unfortunately all forces and means involved in the process weren't enough to combat fires, and the only thing left for them to do was to protect some industry sites and evacuate people. Dangerous situation with forest fires forced 'Rosneft'-Sakhalinmorneftegaz' JSC to declare suspend of its activities (oil and gas transportation) because of the potential danger. Thus, late reaction and involvement of the MES and late mobilization of forces for fire suppression didn't really improve the situation. The measures taken would have been effective 1 -1.5 months before, but not late in September and in October. Besides, we have to admit, that today MES and Rosleskhoz are not prepared well enough for fighting with fires either.

The emergency fire situation in Sakhalin in 1998 discovered a very unpleasant and dangerous trend - disrespect of various state bodies to each other. This very fact created serious obstacles for their cooperation and objective estimation of the role of every body involved in fire suppression (for example, see article "The MES Is Getting Bonuses While Foresters Fight With Fires", "Selskaya zhizn'", 10.11.98).

It is interesting to note information presented to the press by the Sakhalin Forest Department, even after the emergency situation was declared, often would exaggerate the achievements and turn out to be more calming than analogous data published by other departments, which are part of the same forest fire suppression team (for example, see 'Gubernskiye vedomosti', 30.09.98). Hence the following question arises - what data were those teams using when making decisions?