Year 2017. Danger in our forests!
The Ranger Corps of the Republic of Cuba announces a high rate of forest fires in this year 2017 if we do not increase the measures established to avoid it
In order to know the behaviour of the forest fires that occurred in Cuba during the year 2016 and the predictions of occurrences for 2017 a meeting took place in the province of Mayabeque where we were received by the Lieutenant Colonel Jose Miguel Perez, head of the Ranger Corps of the young province, who gave us an overview of the confrontation of these incidents in the same.
Horrendous images of what happened in Chile served engineer Raúl Sáez Rodríguez, head of the Department of Fire Management of the National Directorate of that body, as an introduction to the subject, because in Cuba we have conditions for the occurrence of a similar disaster.
How did the 2016 behave? During the dry period from January to May, the highest occurrence of forest fires, 156 were reported, they affected a little more than 3,370 hectares, about 1,300 natural forests and more than 2,000 of plantations, with the greatest damage to the Ministry Of Agriculture.
The combined effort of the Rangers’ Corps, forestry workers, agricultural workers and the Fire Corps made it possible for 81 per cent of these fires to be controlled before 5 hectares, which shows a high effectiveness in the confrontation.
What conditions are in place in 2017 to rate it as a highly dangerous year?
Since 1996, there has been a tendency to increase these claims with more than 90 per cent due to: human causes, since there is a low perception of the damage they can cause with their negligent actions; Average annual temperature increase; Decrease in rainfall; Increased evaporation and decreased groundwater reserves.
To that is added that the average of combustible material in the forest areas, ie leaves and dry branches, fallen trees, etc. 42 tons per hectare, except for the province of Guantánamo, which due to the recent passage of Hurricane Matthew has an average of 100 tons per ha.
Today there are 60 municipalities considered to be extremely dangerous for the occurrence of forest fires, both due to the accumulation of combustible material and the low rainfall between November 2016 and January2017, whose accumulation does not exceed 12 millimetres of rain, more located towards the South coast, because the north has received the clashes of cold fronts with some more rain.
So far the actual behaviour corresponds to what was planned, since from January 1 to February 2, 33 days, there have been 36 forest fires.
Is this avoidable? Of course yes. If we take into account that each year the human factor is responsible for approximately 90 per cent of the losses due to negligence such as making fires without the proper control or guidance of specialists, driving vehicles with sparks near vegetation, those caused by hunters and poachers and by passers-by and irresponsible smokers, it is possible to reduce the occurrences of these fires by attacking the causes more from the legality and making people more aware of the danger that for our forests, the environment and the economy of the country has their inappropriate behaviour.