Fighting the "fire enemy"

Defense Command of Region 5 - Tinh Gia handles fire under the forest canopy of Tan Dan ward.

To create safe belts for the forest, the Provincial Forest Protection Department has directed its subordinate units to increase patrols and controls in key forest areas during peak hot weather. Early detection of violations of forest protection regulations, such as improper slash-and-burn farming and careless use of fire in the forest, is of particular importance. In addition, the construction and repair of firebreaks has been urgently implemented, contributing to preventing the spread of fires if they unfortunately occur. Not only relying on local forces, the participation of military, police and border guards has created a combined strength in preventing and responding to complex forest fire situations.

In the face of prolonged hot weather, at around 11:00 a.m. on July 9, 2025, in the protective forest area of Tan Dan ward, a fire broke out under the forest canopy, with the potential to spread if not handled promptly. Immediately after receiving the notice, the leaders and commanders of the Defense Command of Region 5 - Tinh Gia quickly reported and asked for instructions from the head of the Provincial Military Command and at the same time deployed a force of 50 officers, employees, and militia soldiers on duty with fire-fighting equipment and tools, in coordination with the forest rangers, police, militia and local authorities, urgently approached the scene, deployed measures to prevent and extinguish the fire. Due to hot weather above 39 degrees Celsius, steep mountainous terrain, and strong winds, access and handling were difficult. The forces were divided into many groups, closely coordinated, determined to control the fire from spreading into the natural forest and residential areas. After about 2 hours of effort, the fire was basically extinguished, minimizing damage to the forest area.

According to statistics, the current forest area of the province is 647,737.35 hectares. Of which, the area of natural forest is 393,361.33 hectares; the area of planted forest is 254,376.02 hectares. The forest area meeting the standards to calculate the coverage of the whole province is 595,935.29 hectares, the forest coverage is 53.6%. With the motto "prevention is the main thing, fire fighting must be timely and effective", the forces are making efforts to synchronously implement solutions to prevent and fight forest fires, strictly control the causes of forest fires; prepare forest fire fighting plans according to the motto "4 on-site" from the province to wards, communes and villages. To do a good job of forest management and protection, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has promoted propaganda and mobilized people in villages and hamlets to participate in mass teams and teams to manage and protect forests. Currently, the whole province has 1,960 mass groups and teams to protect forests and prevent and fight forest fires in villages and hamlets.

In remote areas where ethnic minorities live near forests, propaganda work is focused on in both the common language and ethnic languages, helping people better understand their responsibilities in protecting forest resources. In Xuan Lien National Park, the people living around this area are mainly ethnic minorities, whose main occupations are agricultural production and forest planting, so forest protection work is sometimes difficult. Over the past 5 years, Xuan Lien National Park Management Board has established 12 community forest protection teams with the participation of more than 1,300 people. The teams have coordinated with the forest rangers to patrol and inspect the forest nearly 5,200 times in 31 sub-areas. Thereby, helping the authorities detect, arrest and record 76 administrative violations, a decrease of 152 cases compared to the previous period, ensuring forest security.

Mr. Trinh Dang Tinh, Deputy Head of the Forest Protection and Violation Handling Department, Provincial Forest Protection Department, said: The whole province has 48,050 hectares of forest at high risk of fire. To proactively prevent and fight forest fires, from the beginning of the year, the department has advised all levels to review, prepare means and forces to participate in rescue, develop plans, especially combat plans when forest fires occur. When there is a forecast of level 4 and level 5 forest fire risk, the forest rangers will be on duty 24/7, especially in key areas to control people entering and leaving the forest, detect forest fires early to promptly mobilize people to participate in fire fighting. Forest rangers strictly carry out the task of guarding forest fires, providing information on forecasts and early detection of forest fires, regularly organizing forest patrols, checking forests and monitoring forest fire warning information, in order to detect forest fires early to mobilize forces to fight forest fires promptly to prevent large fires from occurring. At the same time, regularly inspect, monitor and guide people to produce swidden fields in accordance with regulations, ensure that fires do not spread into the forest, mobilize people not to use fire when entering the forest, burn bees, do not burn and treat vegetation, burn garbage in areas near the forest during hot weather, when the risk of forest fires is level 3 or higher.

Article and photos: Hoang Lan

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/tac-chien-voi-giac-lua-257842.htm