Fires are the major threats to forest ecosystems. In the years 1990-2008 a total of 168.2 thousand forest fires were recorded in Poland over a total area of 170.3 thousand ha. Only in 2008 a total of 7850 forest fires broke out and 2514 ha stands burned down. In the same year in forested areas administered by the State Forests National Forest Holding there were 3306 fires, covering the area of 663 ha. This amounts to 42% in terms of the number and 26% in terms of the af-flicted area of the total number of forest fires in Poland. The forest hazard for for-est complexes forces the entities managing them to undertake actions required by the Polish regulations, consisting in e.g. the establishment and maintenance of an adequately dense network of roads, referred to fire roads. They are an important component of the forest fire hazard monitoring system as well as have a consider-able effect on the efficiency, effectiveness and safety of the conducted fire-fighting activities. This study analyzed the technical condition of almost 50 kilometers of roads considered to be fire access roads in a state forest division in southern Po-land. As a result of the conducted survey it ...
It has been estimated that over 80% of forest areas in Poland is threatened with fire. Due to the number of fires and burned area, Poland is counted to the group of European countries where fires break out the most frequently. On average, each year and mostly because of human activity, almost 8.5 thousand fires break out resulting in over 7 thousand ha of burned forest area. Many scientists forecast that the climate warming, decline in precipitation amount and prolonging rainless periods will enhance fire risk in forests, which will translate itself not only into an increase in the number of fires, but also will favour their intensive spreading. The aim of presented paper is estimating the operational efficiency of the fire protection system in Polish forests and the effectiveness of fire extinguishing actions in forests, but also recognition of the effect of the forest area management type on fire statistics. Following data series were investigated: of the number of fires, the burned forest area and average fire area for the years 1990-2016 for the forests under the management of the State Forests National Forest Holding (State Forests NFH) and other managements. Determined trends were analysed by means of Mann-Kendall ...
