When blazing fires rage across the human world, the suffering caused is obvious and incontrovertible. But the impact these fires have on wildlife is less evident, although it certainly is significant.
A state of emergency has been declared in seven of Russia's regions that have been hardest hit by peat-bog and forest fires. The fires spread from Russia's north to Central Russia, the Volga Region and the Caucasus. Forty people have been killed, while the survivors have lost their property and homes. But there are no wildlife losses statistics available now, and there may never be.
Animals either die or lose their natural habitat in a forest fire destroying their "homes" and food, according to Alexey Vaisman, WWF expert and TRAFFIC Europe and Russia coordinator.
While healthy animals and birds can flee leaving only the older and weaker behind, the population inhabiting the forest floor, reliant on the nutrients it provides, dies. This includes mushrooms, bacteria, worms, beetles, maggots, snails, ants and slugs. When forest soil cover consisting of organic sediments, as well as the peat-bogs, dries out, it can catch fire easily and burn in an instant together with its inhabitants.
This naturally triggers a chain reaction: the surviving birds and insect-eating animals cannot live in that area because they would starve.
Wildfires kill reptiles, amphibians, mice, hedgehogs and shrews that are not fast enough to flee. It would be extremely difficult to estimate wildlife casualties, because too many factors have to be taken into account, such as each area's forest population density. Who would bother with this kind of census?
Even if a forest is only partially burnt, there is no guarantee that what remains will be able to provide for the surviving animals in another emergency - say during winter's severe cold, Vaisman said. Young animals can quickly die of starvation, as can sick animals. These are the medium-term consequences of a wildfire.
But nature is wise. It responds to each disaster, large or small, so as to compensate for the damage done. It turns out in the longer run that even wildfires can have some benefits.
New growth will cover the burnt areas within 8 to 10 years. For example, berry bushes grow, providing raspberries and cowberries. These areas, covered with bushes, young birches and asps, give animals food and shelter.
Strictly speaking, wildfires are referred to as the pyrogenic factor in natural succession. Trees of one type are replaced with another, the expert said. This creates the natural "patchwork" pattern of different trees in the forest. For example, a birch wood grows side by side with a pine wood, and so on. This kind of patchwork ensures the necessary biodiversity and increases the area's productivity.
Historically, wildfires change the forests' geography, shifting the areas where specific types of trees are most common. There is a theory that European Russia no longer has cedar trees as a result of fires. Those were not wildfires though, which involve spontaneous combustion as a result of dry thunderstorms and are extremely rare. That was the deliberate burning, an ancient practice used to free the land for crop cultivation. Incidentally, the parents of Russia's most famous epic hero, Ilya of Murom, were farmers who used this practice to get themselves more land.
The new settlers in the Pechora valley did the same in the late 16th-early 17th century. They burned out the cedars, which were later replaced by pines. As a result, sables abandoned the area because the highly nutritious fruit of the cedar, Siberian pine tree nuts, were a significant part of their rations. These nuts are in fact a treat for many kinds of animals.
The Angara pinewoods are also caused by human actions. The Angara Red Pine has dominated local woods after the cedars were burnt out in the 17th century.
Speaking of history, forest fires provoked by the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway also changed the local environment. The first railway link, Chelyabinsk-Vladivostok, was built between 1891 and 1916. The steam engines traversing it emitted showers of sparks setting the local woods on fire. The animals living in the area died.
Forecasts say the wildfires are not going to end soon. Only moist forests, with nettles and pigweed, is hard to burn. Birchwoods too may be spared.
It is still too early to estimate the effect of the wildfires. But the forests and their inhabitants will certainly change.
Olga Sobolevskaya, RIA Novosti commentator
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
