The Federation of Forestry Organizations (FFO) released a statement on the prevention of large-scale forest fires on March 30, calling for an expansion of forest trails to help firefighters extinguish bush fires, increasing the government’s budget for building a forest firefighting regime, and restructuring forests susceptible to bush fires.
The statement came as leaders of the Federation of Forestry Organizations shared the view that steps should be taken to prevent the recurrence of large-scale bush fires that took place in Samcheok, Gangwon-do, and Uljin, Gyeongsangbuk-do recently.
They issued the statement following the end of the 43rd General Meeting of the Federation of Forestry Organizations at the National Forestry Cooperative Federation (NFCF) on March 30.
In particular, firefighters suffered hardships in quenching the bush fires in Samcheok and Uljin due to inaccessible mobilization of fire-fighting equipment and manpower, coupled with tough terrain and geological characteristics.
Urgent steps need to be taken since the forests were found to be susceptible to bush fires.
A view of a helicopter flying for the prevention of the large-scale bush fire in Uljin on March 4. (Photo: KFS)
The statement claimed that forest trails designed to mobilize firefighting equipment in the case of disasters, on top of managing forests and evacuating neighborhood residents, should be expanded to protect people’s lives and properties.
Korea’s forest trail density stands at 3.8 meters per ha, lower than 46 meters for Germany, 45 meters for Austria and 13 meters for Japan.
Additional forest firefighting equipment and manpower should be installed to tackle potential dangers of the frequent forest fires, caused by climate change, and the structure of forests susceptible to fires need to be overhauled through a long-term perspective, the statement said.
News reports said large-sized firefighting helicopters had to undergo maintenance after every 50 hours of operation, so 14 units, or 39 percent of the helicopters owned by the Korea Forest Service (KFS), were not available at the time of the occurrence of the forest fire in Uljin, as they were in maintenance.
More than 10 large-sized copters are required to be immediately supplied on top of mechanized equipment and manpower for extinguishing forest fires.
The statement demanded for building a regime to conduct a fast response to forest fires by expanding a budget related to forest firefighting in the course of this year’s budget allocation.
Currently, forests account for 63 percent of the nation’s total territory. Needleleaf tree forests take a 39 percent share in the nation’s total forest area. The statement called for implementing projects to convert needleleaf tree forests into mixed tree forests, a step to reduce fuel materials, to prevent large-sized forest fires.
Chairman Choi Chang-ho of the Federation of Forestry Organizations said, “We’ve prepared a statement containing opinions that have been gathered from forest organizations considering forests and people.”
The Federation of Forestry Organizations will spearhead efforts to represent the voices of the forest industry and reflect forest policies in the years to come, he said.
The Federation of Forestry Organizations is an entity of 34 forest organizations, including the National Forestry Cooperative Federation (NFCF), established on March 10, 1995, to represent the voices of forest owners and people in the forest industry.
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