Sand on Fire

Perica Grbic of "Srbijasume Plc", member of the Crisis committee for the extinction of this fire, told the public that the fire was first spotted on Saturday, 10 August, 1996 at 10:45am from the Vrelo observation post a few kilometers south of Deliblat. The location was a kilometer or so away from the country houses. The Deliblat forestry commission has six observation posts which are manned night and day during periods of increased risks. Since the forest fires in August of 1990 when 880 hectares of woods were destroyed, the Deliblat forest has been placed in the same category of fire hazard as oil refineries and other such industrial complexes. As soon as the foresters noticed the fire, they began extinguishing it. They have plenty of experience in the matter, since, on average, 6 fires break out in Pesak every year.

However locals say that there were two other fires besides the one near Vrelo: one near Kajtasov (eastern edge of the forest) and the other near Devojacki Bunar, a famous holiday resort on the north of the forest. Perica Grbic says that all relevant "structures"(the police and the Yugoslav army) were immediately informed of the situation, and the crisis committee was elected.

Peasants from Deliblat are suspicious: according to official reports the fire was first "registered" (cautious wording as it does not specify when the fire actually broke out) at 10:45 but at that time the fire was already quite fierce and smoke very high. They believe that the fire broke out earlier, possibly during the night between Friday and Saturday, but that the foresters failed to spot it in time. This need not be the case since the vegetation was dry due to the drought and the wind could have spread the fire very quickly.

The main adverse circumstance was the very strong southern wind "kosava" which began on Saturday and was reaching "hurricane speed" (P. Grbic). In cases of prolonged drought and increased winds, usual measures of fire prevention are of little help. According to Perica Grbic, the forest has 650 kilometers of fire-prevention lines, that is 50 meters wide stretches of bare land which prevent the spread of forest fires. The state of these fire-prevention lines at the time of the breakout of this fire is not known, although some experts say that they were not properly maintained. A fireman, however, told "Vreme" that the wind was too strong for the stretches of bare land to be of any use, and that he saw with his own eyes an ignited fir-cone being carried 200 meters by the wind. An experienced forestry engineer said that making the lines wider would defeat the object of the forest which is isolating the sand from the Deliblat desert, but that one must seek compromise.

The wind pushed the fire through the forest in a number of 2-3 kilometer wide fronts, until the firemen stopped further spread by cutting down the trees and clearing a large area of land with bulldozers. Total damage is yet unknown , though estimates say that it is likely to be between three and seven thousand hectares of forest. Accurate information will be available after aerial shots of the forest and more accurate measurement.

It took four days of superhuman effort on behalf of the firemen, workers and soldiers to extinguish the fire. 650 people were involved in the operation as well as heavy machinery and fire engines including professional firebrigades from Belgrade, Pancevo, Vrsac, Pozarevac etc. Because of the strong wind, aircraft could be used only on the fourth day of the fire, that is on Tuesday. Although forest fires are difficult to extinguish without special planes (e.g. Canadair, C-130, etc.) four agricultural planes and two military helicopters, managed to do quite a lot in one day. On Wednesday, the fire was already treated as extinguished, although teams of firemen remained on the ground to keep the situation under control. If a lesson can be drawn from this fire, than it has to be one referring to fire prevention: better maintenance of fire prevention lines; more and better equipped observation posts manned by more alert observers; better awareness of staff and visitors in Pesak (propaganda, warning signs and discipline); better roads, organization and communication; specialist aircraft; in one word- better care on behalf of the state.