The risk of forest fire in Brandenburg remains dramatically high despite the rain!

The risk of forest fire in Brandenburg remains dramatically high despite the rain!

Grünheide, Deutschland - The risk of forest fire in Brandenburg remains unabated despite some rains. This made forest fire protection officer Raimund Engel clear on Monday morning. At night only local showers were observed that could not significantly reduce the danger. Angel emphasizes: "The downturned forest fire theater levels do not reflect the real danger adequately." So far, this has made an all -clear impossible, because comprehensive rain would be urgently needed to relax the situation. So a forest fire was reported from Grünheide (district of Oder-Spree), which underlines the persistent problem.

Currently the highest danger level 5 applies to the Havelland. In most other counties, the risk of forest fire lies between level 3 (medium danger) and level 1 (low danger). Despite this scale, you have to consider that Brandenburg has an impressive forest area of ​​around 1.1 million hectares, which corresponds to more than 37 percent of the total area of ​​the federal state. The challenge is enormous because human action is responsible for over 90 percent of all forest fires. This already made the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Western Pomerania clear.

causes and precautionary measures

flashes are the only natural cause of forest fires, but it is usually people who trigger the devastating fire due to carelessness or even arson. The Federal Environment Agency also found that between 1991 and 2017 the area of ​​the forest fires in Germany decreased significantly, while the weather -related danger remained the same or even increased in some regions. However, in 2018 and 2019, which were characterized by extreme drought, there was an increase in forest fires, especially in the northeastern federal states.

In Brandenburg, forest fires are a relevant hazard, which is not least due to the weather conditions. The amount of flammable material, the weather and the inventory structure plays a decisive role. In order to minimize the risk, it is essential to comply with precautionary measures. Violations of the corresponding regulations, according to paragraph 23 of the forest law, can be punished with fines up to 20,000 euros.

trend and outlook

The developments of the past years show that an average of 124 days with danger levels of 4 or 5 were reported in the areas particularly at risk of forest fire in 2018. Brandenburg was particularly affected, where 512 fires were registered, which suffered from 1,674 hectares of forest. The most important fire took place in Jüterbog and affected 573.72 hectares. The challenges in forest fire prevention are expected to increase. Targeted measures to improve the systems and the training of the emergency services are therefore essential.