WARSAW (Reuters) - Wildfires have been ravaging the marshes of the Biebrza National Park in northeastern Poland, home to moose, beavers and unique wetland birds, since Sunday, as the country faces the severest drought in decades.
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire burning at the Biebrzanski National Park near Bialystok, Poland April 22, 2020. Grzegorz Dabrowski/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS
Hundreds of firefighters are tackling the blaze, which has spread to around 6,000 hectares. The area of the Biebrza Nature Park, Poland’s biggest, is 59,000 hectares.
“Spring is an abrupt explosion of life. It is impossible to calculate the loss. This is a tragedy, it cannot be described. We may have to fight this fire for months,” Janina Agnieszka Zach, a tour guide at the park, told TVN broadcaster.
The Environment Ministry said the fire was most likely caused by illegal grass burning.
“Fires in the Biebrza National Park break out every year, but such a large one has not been there for years. The situation is very serious,” Environment Minister Michal Wos said in a statement.
“The wind and the unique drought this year make it very difficult to put out the fire,” the ministry also said.
Environmentalists say that the fire reflects ongoing climate change and urge the government to change its water management policies to fight the drought.
“We regulate rivers, straighten their banks, conduct harmful maintenance works, which accelerate the outflow of water, we build dams and hydrotechnical barriers, dry marshes. We forget that it is natural rivers and their valleys that counteract drought, and wetlands are the best areas for natural retention,” said World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Polska in its latest report on drought in Poland.
Last year Poland announced a 14 billion zlotys plan to fight drought that was designed to increase water retention.
“Instead of building retention reservoirs, efforts should be made to renaturate already damaged rivers,” said Przemyslaw Nawrocki from WWF Polska.
On Wednesday President Andrzej Duda called on Poles to use water reasonably.
The fire rages as the world on Wednesday celebrates Earth Day, an annual event to demonstrate support for environmental protection.
Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Editing by Steve Orlofsky
Wildfire ravages Poland's largest national park on Earth Day
Thousands of hectares of precious wetland have burned as the world marks Earth Day in honor of protecting the environment. Experts have blamed climate change and the Polish government's water polices.
Some 6,000 hectares of Biebrza National Park in northeastern Poland were ablaze on Wednesday, as more than 120 firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames. Biebrza is home to 59,000 hectares of wetlands, wildlife such as moose, beavers, and unique species of birds, and hiking trails.
"It is impossible to calculate the loss. This is a tragedy, it cannot be described. We may have to fight this fire for months," park employee Janina Agnieszka Zach, told Polish broadcaster TVN.
Environment Minister Michal Wos said that the fire, which began burning on Sunday, was likely caused by illegal grass burning – a method sometimes employed to clear swaths of dead grass.
Read more: 2019 was Europe's hottest year on record
"Fires in the Biebrza National Park break out every year, but such a large one has not been there for years. The situation is very serious," Wos said in a statement.
"The wind and the unique drought this year make it very difficult to put out the fire," the ministry added.
More than 100 firefighters were dispatched to the scene
Wildfires pose major problems for agriculture
A smaller wildfire also broke out in the Dutch town of Herkenbosch on Wednesday, a sign of Europe's ongoing drought. There are worries now across the EU that drought brought on by man-made climate change, compounded by the lack of workers available to travel across borders to harvest food, could wreak havoc on the bloc's food supply chain.
Read more: Wildfires: Climate change and deforestation increase the global risk
Polish environmentalists called on their government to change its wasteful water policies, which they said were partly to blame for the fire.
"We regulate rivers, straighten their banks, conduct harmful maintenance works, which accelerate the outflow of water, we build dams and hydrotechnical barriers, dry marshes. We forget that it is natural rivers and their valleys that counteract drought, and wetlands are the best areas for natural retention," said World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Polska in its latest report on drought in Poland.
The WWF Polska has also noted that "agriculture is a major sector affected by losses from extreme weather phenomena," and that "drought is one of the most common threats" influencing agriculture.
Last year, Poland announced a 14 billion zloty ($ 3.3 billion) plan to fight drought, which focuses on water retention throughout the country. In response to the blaze in Biebrza, President Andrzej Duda called on Wednesday for Poles to use water more responsibly, but did not announce any concrete steps.
es/msh (dpa, Reuters)
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Date 22.04.2020
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