A forest fire expert does not rule out rockfalls after the fires in the Saxon Switzerland National Park.
“I’m afraid that the fires in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains will lead to dramatic soil erosion and rockfalls. There’s hardly any humus there, the trees are on rock,” said Michael Müller, Professor of Silviculture and Forest Protection at the Technical University of Dresden, to the newspapers of the Bayern media group Thursday.
The expert advocated not always extinguishing forest fires in all areas. In a German national park, every fire slows down natural development by decades. The situation in the pine forests in Brandenburg, for example, is different. “There are areas with high ammunition loads. Here you have to decide whether to put out fires or give up and let it go.”
There have been forest fires in southern Brandenburg and in the Saxon Switzerland National Park for days. Hundreds of firefighters fight the flames to the point of exhaustion and are supported by numerous fire-fighting helicopters. The fires are spreading in Saxony, but are under control in Brandenburg.
Müller also sees the use and purchase of fire-fighting aircraft as a supporting tool at best. “You can’t put out a forest fire with fire-fighting aircraft. We mainly throw the water at the treetops and are talking about one to two liters of water per square meter.” With fire-fighting aircraft, however, one can rob a strong fire of energy for a short time. “The heat and the noise level of the fire then suddenly decrease. Then the fire brigades can attack the crucial ground fire.”
