If there were no woods there would be no forest fires, the problem would be solved at the origin, and we would no longer have to compare ourselves as the dramatic ones of June 2017 that broke out in Portugal, or like the fires that are raging throughout Italy in this hot August. . However, not being able to give up forests and their basic services (soil protection, biodiversity, tourism, energy, supply of renewable raw materials) we must necessarily deal with fire in forest systems and learn to govern this phenomenon starting from its roots, that is from the knowledge and management of woods, forests and other wooded lands in dynamic evolution and interaction with rural spaces. But then what needs to be done to protect yourself from this dramatic reality and what to do in order to correctly assess the environmental damage caused by the passage of fire on the land.
Today the strategy, practically unique at least in Italy, is mainly based on extinguishing the fire. This plan provides for a fire-fighting structure capable of promptly intervening with numerous means over a vast territory. However, fires have always had a great unknown: they have a high variability from one year to another that depends on different predisposing and determining conditions, and first of all on meteorological variability, in fact atmospheric phenomena play a key role in the spread of fire .. Furthermore, technically, the strategy of attack on fire in Italy is mainly based on using water to extinguish the fires. Just think of the summer of 2007 when the national fighting system went into crisis due to simultaneous fires in Southern Italy and wind conditions that did not allow the use of aircraft. Just look at what has been happening since July 2017, mainly due to arsonists for profit or for other crime, who activate fire with accelerators or other artifact artifacts with organic compounds and placed inside the forests according to well defined but difficult to identify criminal designs. immediately by those in charge of status or by the honest community. Having only one strategy is not wise. Conversely, a strategy that integrates extinction with preventive forest management actions that make it less susceptible to large fires is more effective in mitigating the risk. The truth about forest fires is that forests need to be managed according to their ecology and the services they provide to the various communities, with the aim of decreasing the most flammable biomass and therefore making the flames as fast, intense and severe as possible. Everything is changing in the forest sector. In some cases, the depopulation of inland and mountain areas also corresponds to a real dismantling of some technical services and, at central level, the institutional transition is taking a long time, increasing the risks of losing precious opportunities. The management of fires in Italy must change and no longer be based only on the extinction of the fires.
Instead, it is necessary to integrate extinction with forestry and territorial planning, environmental education aimed primarily at schools, and prevention through the care of the forest, an irreplaceable asset to improve the well-being and quality of life of the community. Furthermore, greater cohesion is needed between those who say they are part of animalist, naturalist currents or with those who, with concrete facts and voluntary work, contribute to assisting forestry workers activated by the State for extinguishing and fire prevention, that is, We hunters. I remember that hunters are very active as firefighting volunteers, and have always been synonymous with "first guardians of the woods", all in order to improve the development of a conscience towards more sustainable hunting and greater protection of wildlife and agroforestry heritage. .
To you the appropriate evaluations ..