The current landscape fire management in Ukraine and strategy for its improvement

Recurrent wildfires in Ukraine exert severe impacts on the environment, human health and security as well as damage to private and public assets. From 2007 to 2020, the frequency of large wildfires has increased and reached a level that has not occurred previously. The period during April-October 2020 was the worst in modern Ukrainian history for the occurrence of catastrophic fires, e.g. in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (67 000 ha), Zhytomyr oblast (43 000 ha), Lugansk oblast (35 000 ha) and Kharkiv oblast (8 000 ha). In Ukraine there is the additional problem of open burning, mainly burning agriculture residues, which covers two million hectares (ha) annually. State forestry enterprises who are responsible for the management of 71% of the Ukrainian forests (7.6 million ha)and agricultural holdings are also responsible for the management of 41.3 million ha of croplands. The remaining forest users manage forest areas of 3.1 million ha within reserves and national nature parks. This article presents a brief overview of the problem of forest fires as well as of fires in other landscapes in Ukraine, and includes a critical reviews of the current wildfire management system and a description of the main features of the national wildfire management strategy. It also highlights the results of a survey of numerous stakeholders conducted on landscape fires in Ukraine. Based on the review of global and regional experiences, as well as existing fire risks in Ukraine, recommendations were developed for implementing an integrated landscape level national fire management approach.