Forest fire involving around 20 people. The cause? Probably... a cigarette butt

The incident occurred on September 16, at around 7:30 p.m. Nadleśnictwo Bolesławiec:

The State Fire Service informed the PAD of Nadleśnictwo Bolesławiec about a fire involving a pile of branches in the forest. After a brief conversation, it was possible to establish the preliminary location, after which the Superintendent’s Representative went to the scene together with the forester.

At the scene, it turned out that a pile of spruce branches intended for chipping—that is, shredding with a wood chipper—had caught fire.

Foresters:

The firefighters used special nozzles to prevent the pile from igniting more intensely and to stop small, burning fragments from spreading (…).

Proper firefighting began only when the owner of the Forest Services Company, Mr. Władysław Jasiński, arrived with a tractor and a forest trailer equipped with a crane and grapple (…).

More than two hours passed from the tractor’s arrival until the fire was finally extinguished. The entire operation lasted from 7:30 p.m. to 11:15 p.m., or more than 3.5 hours. Around 20 people were involved in extinguishing the fire, and the Fire Service used more than 20 m³ of water for this purpose.

And they sum up: – So many personnel and resources were used to extinguish branches that were ultimately intended to become fuel for a bioelectric power plant. And all because someone failed to exercise due caution, probably with a cigarette butt. The branches had been piled a few meters from the road and had been there for some time, so it is difficult to identify any cause other than the carelessness of the “forest visitors.” The pile also constituted a habitat—valuable from a natural and ecological perspective—for many organisms that lived in it and died in the fire. It is also worth mentioning the unnecessary emission into the atmosphere of many substances produced during such uncontrolled burning, as well as CO₂ emissions. All of this could have been prevented if someone, instead of “firing off a cigarette butt,” had simply stubbed it out on the road under their shoe.

They also add: – We would like to thank the Fire Service units that took part in the firefighting operation, as well as Mr. Jasiński for his assistance. We also thank the person who noticed and reported the fire, because thanks to them it was not the Forest that burned down, but only around 15 m³ of branches.