According to the State Forest Service, more than 60 forest fires have already been extinguished in Latvia this year. Over 30 hectares of forests have burned, causing damage to both mature and young forest areas. Notably, eight fires have been extinguished in the Līksna municipality of the Augšdaugava region, in the suburbs of Daugavpils. The largest of these was recorded last week, when a forest of two hectares burned.
This year, the situation in terms of forest fires is relatively calmer, says Kaspars Briedis, operational duty officer at the Latgale Region Department of the State Forest Service. However, the fire-hazard period has arrived and this has to be taken into account.
A fire hazard period has been in place in Latvia since May 3.
"It [the drought] contributes to the spread because the fire spreads faster, it also depends on the wind speed, but mostly it is due to arson, when a person or people deliberately go into the forest and burn deliberately in several places at the same time." Arson is a trend that has emerged recently and specifically in the Augšdaugava region, around Daugavpils, says Kaspars Jonāns, fire protection engineer at the Southern Forest Division of the State Forest Service.
"In the last week, there have been eight cases of arson with a total area of less than 2.5 hectares," he adds. The losses are still being calculated.
Of course, this is a loss that is being assessed, notes Kaspars Jonāns: "It depends on the age of the forest, whether it is a mature forest or a young stand, a young stand can die, but a mature forest has a better chance of survival."
Vilmārs Skutels, chief forester of the Southern Forest Inspectorate, says: "Spring fires are not as dangerous for an adult pine forest, which is mostly around Daugavpils, as they can be for young stands - pine and fir trees that are recently planted and are 10 or 50 years old."
Young forests have also suffered because of this arson, says the chief forester, recalling that deliberate forest burning has already been observed in his long working practice:
"I myself started working in the Daugavpils chief forestry in 1991, when the Latvian independence processes started, and in 1992 there were a lot of forest fires, there were some 350 or even 380 forest fires that year. There was a lot of arson, there were days when there were more than 20 fires in about the same place, within one block. I think that then these processes were linked to the independence of Latvia and the arson was carried out by the bad people."
Skutels also sees certain parallels in recent trends in arson, which are reinforced by today's events in several European countries:
"Today, I think that the arsons that have taken place around Daugavpils in recent weeks are also the work of a mentally unbalanced person who has been influenced by the processes of arson diversions, arsons in Poland, Lithuania and also in our country. The person probably imagines that this is how he will help Putin. I think that the police have to work here, definitely. It's not just going to stop."
A criminal case has been initiated and is being investigated in connection with the forest burning, as confirmed by Simona Grāvīte, spokesperson for the State Police: "In connection with the recent fire, the State Police have initiated criminal proceedings under Chapter 11 of the Criminal Law - criminal offenses against the natural environment. The investigation is currently being carried out to determine whether it was arson."
Such cases of arson were also detected in 2023.
