Fires in natural ecological systems

They include 3 types:

- Forest Fires

- Fire of plain and grain arrays

- Fires in peatlands

Fires - are uncontrolled combustion processes, which causes humans deaths and destruction of material richness.

Causes of fires are human’s careless behavior with fire, fire safety violations, natural disasters (lightning, drought). It is known that 90% of fires are caused by humans fault and only 7-8% caused by lightning.

During fires fertile soil, which was formed over millennia, is burned. After the fires in the mountainous regions erosion is developing, and in the North - forest lands are waterlogged.

The main types of fires as disasters that cover large areas (hundreds, thousands, millions of hectares), are landscaped fires - forest and plain.

Forest fires are divided into grassroots, upland, and underground. By intensity of burning forest fires are divided into weak, medium, high.

Grassroots forest fires are characterized by burning of dry grass, forest litter and undergrowth without capturing crowns of trees. The velocity of the front ground fire is between 0,3-1 m / min (weak fire) to 16 m / min (high fire), the height of the flame - 1-2 m, the maximum temperature at the edge of the fire reaches 900 ° C.

Upland forest fires usually are developing from the grassroots and are characterized by burning of trees crowns. At rapid upland fire the flame is spread from the crown to crown with great speed, reaching 8-25 km / h, sometimes leaving entire sections of forest untouched by fire. At stable upland fire not only the crown are covered by the flame, but also the trunks of trees. The flame is spread at speed of 5-8 km / h, covering the entire forest from the soil layer to the treetops.

Underground fires occur as a continuation of grassroots or upland forest fires and are spread on a layer of peat, which is located at a depth of 50 cm. Burning is slow, almost with no air at speed of 0.1-0.5 m / min, a large amount of smoke is released and burnouts (voids that where burned) are formed. Therefore, the approach to the center of the underground fire must be careful. Burning may take a long time, even in winter under a layer of soil.

Plain (field) fires occur in open areas where there is a faded dry grass or grain that is ripe. They are seasonal and are more often in the summer. Speed of distribution can reach 20-30 km / h.

The main measures in grassroots forest fire struggle are:

· reclaiming the fire by sand;

· pouring by water (chemicals);

· creating mineralized fire lanes;

· starting of oncoming fire.

To extinguish the grassroots forest fire is harder. It extinguishes by creating fire lanes, using water and lettig oncoming fire. Plain (field) fires are extinguished in the same way as the forest one.

Extinguishing of underground fires is done by two events in most cases. During the first event the trench is digging around the peat fire at a distance of 8 - 10 m from the edge with a depth of mineralized soil or groundwater level and it is filled with water. During the second event around a fire the lane is arranged that is saturated by chemical solutions. Attempts to fill underground fire by water were unsuccessful.

Recommended rules of behavior during fire:

· during the fires there is needed to beware of high temperature, smoke and gas contamination, explosions, fallings of trees and buildings, collapses in burned soil;

· there is dangerous to enter the smoke zone when the visibility is less than 10m;

· before entering the burning building ,you should cover your head with wet blanket, cloak, cloth, etc.;

· doors in smoke-filled rooms should be opened carefully to prevent flare flame from the rapid influx of fresh air;

· in a very smoky room you must cringe;

· for protection against carbon monoxide you must breathe through a damp cloth;

· if a man’s clothing fires he must lie on the ground and knock down the flames, you can not run it can blow the flame even more;

· if you see a man in a burning clothes, you should cover him by a coat, cloak, any sheet and press down firmly;

· during the fire extinguishing use fire extinguishers, water, sand, earth, sheets and other means;

· coming out of the fire area should be upwind, ie in the direction from which the wind blows;

· in extinguishing forest fires, use branches of deciduous trees (birch, hazel), shovels, etc.; branches should obscure edge of fires, using shovels to fill it with soil;

The current state of fires in the ecosystems of Ukraine.

Area of wood fund in Ukraine is about 10.8 million hectares.

Highest values of probability of forest fires and losses from them are typical for coniferous molodnykiv and medieval plantations of the South, East and Polissya of Ukraine.

Fire hazardous situation in the woods last year is formed mainly under the influence of human factors and climatic conditions.

At the beginning of fire hazardous period the major cause of forest fires is usually burning out of dry vegetation and its remnants on farmland and roadside strips near woodlands.

In 2007 the first forest fires were recorded in February and lasted until November 2007. Very hot and long summer with windy, without precipitation weather also contributed to the exacerbation of the fire danger, with many fires terms of scope and damages. During three month (August-October) abnormally dry period, with a complete lack of precipitation in some parts of southern and eastern regions was formed. In addition, a sharp rise in visits of forests by population and violations of fire safety requirements contributed to the occurrence of forest fires. The main cause of fires of this period (98% of cases) was violations of fire safety requirements by population.

In general, in the country during 2007 fire destroyed and damaged forest areas on a total area of 13,787 ha (against 4446.2 ha in 2006), inflicted material damages worth more than 188.5 million hrn. The largest areas covered by fires recorded in the Kherson region - 8886 ha and Autonomous Republic of Crimea - 1482 ha. The losses from these fires are 85.42 million and 97.8 million USD respectively.

A characteristic feature of the reporting period was concentration of emergencies associated with fires in natural ecosystems in the southern, eastern and south-eastern regions, where weather conditions contributed to the high fire danger.

In 2007, 30 emergencies associated with fires in natural ecosystems (2 of them of regional level) were happened.

Such emergencies of regional level gained great resonance:

· In August 2007, Kherson oblast (Golopristanskii and Tsyurupinsk areas) in Kardashinskii and Tsurupinskii forest districts, a fire destroyed the forest plantation with area of ​​about 7400 hectares. The total amount of material damages is more than 15 thousand MRZP. Altogether to the liquidation of the fire were involved 1341 persons and 110 units of fire equipment and 74 units of special equipment.

· August 24 in Yalta the outbreak of the forest floor in the 12th quarter of Alupkinsky Forestry (territory of the Crimean Nature Reserve) occurred.

For violations of fire safety requirements in the forests brought 5.9 thousandpersons to administrative responsibility, the total amount of fines amounted 116.4 thousand hryvnya.

2.5. Emergencies of medical-biologicalnature (mass poisoning of people, massive infectious disease).

During 2007 there were 66 emergenciesof medical-biological nature (2 - PP 20 - MY 44 - PR). As a result of these events died 66 persons (11 children), suffered 903 persons (304 children).

The most resonant situations with infectious diseases of people in 2007 were:

· in February 2007 - the flu epidemic that spanned most of the administrative formations of Donetsk - exceeding the epidemic threshold in 1,7 times, Zakarpattia (in 1.8 times), Lviv (in 2.5 times), Nicholas (in 1.5 times ), Rivne (in 2.2 times), Cherkassy (in 1.6 times), Chernigov (in 1.6 times) regions and Kyiv in 1.8 times; (Emergencies of regional level);

· in July 2007 in the village Malyi Zholudsk, Volodymyretsky district of the Rivne region, where due to violation of sanitary-hygienic norms on the family celebration were registered a case of salmonellosis group disease of 128 people (including 20 children). (Emergencies of regional level);

· In October 2007, in Zakarpattya region, where 85 people (including 17 children) sick on hepatitis-A in the village Turya Remeta Perechynsky area (Emergencies of regional level);

· In October 2007, in the Crimea, where 67 people (including 21 children) sick on viral hepatitis-A in Shcholkine (Emergencies of regional level).

The 66 emergencies of medical-biological nature 34 emergencies happened due topoisoning (carbon monoxide and domestic gas - 50%, 91% - dead; food products - 41%, 91% - victims; toxic substances - 9% from all poisoning).

According to the data of Ministry of Health in 2007 registered 533 cases of poisoning the population by mushrooms. 43 people (5 children) died.