Build a solid fire safety barrier for forests and grasslands

At present, the whole country is in a critical period of fire prevention. The Office of the National Forest and Grassland Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Headquarters and the Ministry of Emergency Management continue to dispatch and deploy forest and grassland fire prevention and extinguishing work, strictly prevent the occurrence of major forest and grassland fires and casualties, and make every effort to safeguard the safety of people's lives and property and ecological security.

Prevention first, comprehensive investigation of fire hazards

Early in the morning, Li Jianjun, the captain of the No. 1 Squadron of the Forest Fire Brigade of Tonghua City, Jilin Province, and his team members wore fireproof clothing, carried wind-powered fire extinguishers, electric water guns, chain saws and other equipment on their backs, and patrolled the reckless mountains and forests.

Tonghua is located in the remaining veins of Changbai Mountain, with mountains stretching and plants germinating. "It's a good time to go green, and it's also a critical period for forest fire prevention." Li Jianjun told reporters that more and more people have recently entered the forest area and carried out construction operations in the forest, and in order to comprehensively investigate and rectify fire hazards, the staff patrols in groups every day, rotating every 2 to 3 hours, and patrolling 10 to 20 kilometers each time.

In order to effectively ensure the safety of forest resources and people's lives and property, the forest firefighting team of Jilin Province has been deployed to build a solid forest fire safety barrier. "Before the spring defense, we sent 14 forest fire risk investigation teams to go deep into the forest area to conduct on-the-spot inspections of combustibles." Cheng Song, deputy director of the fire fighting and rescue headquarters of the Jilin Provincial Forest Fire Brigade, said that at present, the corps strictly implements the 24-hour on-duty preparation and all-weather emergency duty system.

"Prevention first, that is, to work 'prevention', and always put 'prevention' in the first place." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Emergency Management said that in order to do a good job in fire source control and hidden danger investigation, all localities and departments should increase law enforcement, resolutely investigate and deal with illegal fire use, organize and carry out forest and grassland fire hazard investigation and rectification on a regular basis, and effectively prevent and resolve major risks of forest and grassland fires from the source.

"It's too dangerous to set off firecrackers in the mountains and forests, so let's replace them with yellow chrysanthemums, and they will be safe and civilized." At a checkpoint in Qixing Village, Zhaoshan Town, Yuetang District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, the staff inspected the people who went up the mountain, and orderly persuaded the people who entered the mountain not to carry the fire source up the mountain, and provided free bouquets of chrysanthemums to promote safe and civilized sacrifices.

In Menmenkeng Village, Chixiao Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, among thousands of acres of towering eucalyptus forests, a "line corridor" composed of low fruit trees such as pomelo and honey pear in Shatian is particularly conspicuous. This is an important power supply line from Qingyuan to Foshan, and the "line corridor" with a width of about 45 meters forms a natural fire isolation zone under the high-voltage transmission and transformation lines. "Eucalyptus trees grow tall and grow quickly, and they are prone to high-voltage lines and cause forest fires." Zhao Chaowen, Secretary of the Party Committee of Chini Town, said that in order to solve the fire hazard caused by the contradiction between the tree line, the local government coordinated the villagers to plant eucalyptus trees along the line with low fruit trees, eliminating fire hazards and protecting the ecological environment.

"During the critical period of spring prevention this year, we will make every effort to reduce the safety risk of forests and grasslands from the source and continuously improve the level of intrinsic safety." The relevant person in charge of the National Forest Prevention and Control Office said that it will cut off potential risks and hidden dangers by paying close attention to source control, promoting the "five entry" of fire prevention publicity, increasing fire source control, organizing and carrying out dynamic clearance of major hidden dangers and special actions to investigate and deal with illegal fire use.

Technology empowerment to improve the level of refined management

Walking into the forest fire prevention and extinguishing headquarters in the Daxinganling area of Heilongjiang Province, the large screen of the forest fire prevention perception system platform was densely flashing with red dots. "Lightning strikes are very easy to cause forest fires, and each point here represents a lightning strike with a different charge." Li Chenguang, deputy director of the Forest Fire Prevention Office of the Daxinganling Forestry Group Company, said.

The Daxinganling area is one of the three major areas with a high incidence of "lightning strikes" in the country, and it enters the period of high incidence of lightning strikes in mid-May every year. Despite frequent lightning strikes, this forest with a total area of 8.35 million hectares and a forest coverage rate of 87.7% has not had a single major forest fire for 13 consecutive years. This is mainly due to the help of science and technology: the forest fire prevention perception system integrates real-time perception, accurate monitoring, efficient evaluation and other functions, which can realize the integrated fire early warning and monitoring of "sky tower and ground", and effectively achieve early detection of fire.

"Relying on the satellite remote sensing system, real-time monitoring of three-dimensional lightning data can be realized, and the location, intensity, type and occurrence time of lightning can be pushed to various places in the first time, which effectively improves the detection efficiency and accuracy of lightning fire." Li Chenguang said that at the same time, manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were used to conduct aerial inspections to achieve visual command.

According to statistics, from May to August 2023, 35 lightning fires have been triggered in the Daxinganling area, with an average fire extinguishing time of 3 hours and 05 minutes, and the shortest fire extinguishing time of 21 minutes, avoiding small fires from causing major disasters.

The watchtower is the "golden eye" for monitoring wildfires in forest areas. Since 2018, lookouts Li Jinzhu and Li Chunmei have been stationed on the 516 watchtower of the Tahe Forestry Bureau at an altitude of more than 500 meters in the Daxinganling area. "In the past, we relied on both eyes to see, but now the tower is equipped with high-tech, through video pyrotechnic recognition, the location of the fire point can be accurately determined, and the thermal infrared and visible light dual spectrum monitoring of the fire can be realized." Li Jinzhu said. There are 352 watchtowers like this in the Greater Khinganling area.

"During the forest and grassland fire prevention period, there are 1,276 watchtowers in the province that are on duty 24 hours a day to monitor the fire situation in the forest area in multiple dimensions." The relevant person in charge of the Heilongjiang Provincial Emergency Management Department said that Heilongjiang has introduced a smart forest fire satellite monitoring platform on the basis of the national satellite monitoring platform to realize the hot spot monitoring of forest areas in the province every 10 minutes.

"At present, the mainland has established a comprehensive scientific and technological intelligent forest and grassland fire prevention system with satellite monitoring in the sky, aerial aircraft patrol, and ground video surveillance, and will make full use of digital high-tech means to comprehensively improve the level of fine management of forest and grassland fire prevention." The relevant person in charge of the National Forest Prevention and Control Office said.

"Disposal in small", safe and efficient "early and small"

"Major fires start from small fires, and they can only be dealt with early if they are detected early." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Emergency Management said that "fighting early, fighting small, and fighting" is the valuable experience of preventing and extinguishing fires in forests and grasslands for many years, "fighting early" is to extinguish the fire earlier before it has caused a large fire, "fighting small" is to seize the favorable opportunity to extinguish the fire when it first occurs, so as not to let the small fire become a catastrophe, and "fighting" is to extinguish the fire in time.

After breakfast, Chen Shufen, a full-time forest fire prevention grid member in Paitan Town, Zengcheng District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, put on patrol equipment, brought a loudspeaker, picked up a leaflet, and started a day's patrol work.

Paitan Town, which has 320,000 acres of forest, is one of the six pilot townships in the country for "standardized management of grassroots forest and grassland fire prevention and extinguishing". With a large forest area and many fire hazards, how to "fight early, fight small, and fight"? "Mobilize the power of the masses to ensure that the mountains are managed, the forests are protected, and the responsibilities are shouldered." Huang Wenfeng, director of the emergency management office of Paitan Town, said that based on the "one map" of forest resource management, Paitan Town has divided the town's 38 villages (communities) into 58 grids, equipped with 58 full-time grid workers for forest fire prevention at the village level, and clarified the "responsibility field" of each grid member. Grid personnel open the "cloud patrol" system around the clock during inspections to realize closed-loop management such as online fire hazard inspection and patrol, task assignment, and remediation feedback.

The key to forest fire prevention lies in people. In order to mobilize the masses more extensively, all towns and streets in Zengcheng District have strengthened the construction of three teams: full-time fire brigades, forest ranger teams and emergency support teams. In the event of a forest fire, the team of forest rangers who work and live in the village can quickly assemble a firefighting team of no less than 10 people within 30 minutes, and make every effort to "fight early and small", or meet with the full-time fire brigade to enhance the firefighting force. The emergency support team, which is mainly composed of cadres and workers, security team members, safety supervisors, assistant managers, and militiamen, can quickly organize forces to transport equipment and materials such as pumps, hoses, and food and drink.

"According to the fire prevention and extinguishing situation in forests and grasslands this year, we have organized equipment and materials to the 'three fronts' of high fire risk areas, strengthened training drills and linkage response, and made various preparations for emergency response in advance." The relevant person in charge of the National Forest Prevention and Control Office said that the next step will be to continue to promote the sinking of forces, the downward tilt of support, and the forward movement of passes, and strive to make up for the shortcomings of fire prevention and extinguishing forces, equipment and infrastructure, accelerate the improvement of forest and grassland fire prevention and extinguishing capabilities, and ensure that the national forest and grassland fire prevention and extinguishing situation is stable and improving.

Source: People's Daily