Emergency action to collect data in war-affected Scots pine forests in Ukraine

Forest fires can severely harm ecosystems, wildlife, infrastructure, and threaten human lives.

Changing climate drives increases in the frequency of severe droughts, which favor large and uncontrollable forest fires. Such fires happened in Ukrainian forests during 2015 and 2020.

Now these forests suffer from the war: a large area of Scots pine forests (~ 70,000 ha) has burned in 2022 due to shelling-induced fires. Forest managers attempt to lower future fire risks by reducing deadwood stock in yet undisturbed pine forests. However, large deadwood is an important natural habitat.

Its removal could negatively affect forest biodiversity.

There are currently no studies to evaluate the trade-offs between maintaining biodiversity through preserving the deadwood and fire hazard in the Central European forests. We aim to evaluate trade-offs between deadwood as a “biodiversity carrier” and as a fire hazard in managed forests. We will collect vegetation and deadwood data in typical pine forests on sample plots near Kyiv City, Ukraine.

These sites will soon become a part of already growing defense system around the capital, with landmine fields and prohibited access.

Fuel data we aim to collect is crucial to run different scenarios in fire behavior simulator FlamMap which has already shown an extreme efficiency in Ukrainian conditions. The results of the project can be useful for all European countries with large areas of pine forests including Sweden.