Message about peat fires. How peat burns: and why it is difficult to extinguish

Peat fires are the ignition of a peat bog, drained or natural.

Peat is a product of incomplete decomposition of plant mass under conditions of excess humidity and insufficient aeration. Peat has the highest moisture capacity of all solid fuels.

The main thermal characteristics of peat are its calorific value, as well as its thermal conductivity coefficient. The main combustible materials in peat are carbon (52-56% of the total mass) and hydrogen (5-6% of the total mass), in addition, peat contains from 30 to 40% oxygen atoms bound in molecules chemical substances, of which peat is made.

Causes of occurrence peat fires are improper handling of fire, lightning strike or spontaneous combustion, which can occur at temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius. In summer, the soil surface in the middle zone can heat up to 52-54 degrees. In addition, quite often soil peat fires are a development of ground forest fire. In these cases, the fire is buried in the peat layer near the tree trunks.

Peat fires are typical in the second half of summer, when, as a result of a long drought, the top layer of peat dries out to a relative humidity of 25-100%. With this moisture content, it can ignite and maintain combustion in the lower, less dry layers. The depth of burning of a peat deposit is determined by the level of groundwater.

Combustion usually occurs in the “smoldering” mode, that is, in the flameless phase, both due to oxygen supplied with the air and due to its release during the thermal decomposition of the combustible material.

The combustion process in the lower part is much more intense than in the upper part. This is explained by the fact that fresh cold air, being heavier, enters the lower part of the combustion zone, where it reacts with burning peat. Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as pyrolysis products (thermal decomposition of organic compounds without air access) of heated peat wash the upper part of the combustion zone, preventing oxygen from accessing it. Also, the spread of combustion to the upper layers of the soil is prevented by the increased humidity in the turfy root layer of the soil, which well retains moisture from precipitation and capillary rise of groundwater.

Digging into the lower layers of peat to the mineral soil or groundwater level, combustion can spread tens and hundreds of meters from the inlet, only reaching the surface in places. When the combustion source deepens, the heat released in the peat layer accumulates and spreads towards areas with high humidity, which ignite after the moisture contained in them evaporates.

There are single-focal and multi-focal peat fires. If the fire started from the burning of the ground cover, then it is possible for the fire to penetrate into the organic layer of soil in several places at once. When a fire starts from a fire, it is usually a single-source fire.

The source of a newly emerging soil-peat fire can be quickly extinguished by pouring water on a section of burning peat, separating it from the edges of the resulting funnel and stacking it on the burnt area. Since there are a lot of roots of trees and shrubs in the upper layers of peat, this work should be done with axes or very sharp shovels. If possible, the edges of the funnel should be treated with water and wetting agent or chemicals from backpack sprayers.

In cases of multi-focal peat fires, which usually occur on peaty soils as a result of a ground fire, extinguishing is possible only by localizing the entire area where the fires are located. This localization is carried out using ditch diggers or explosions, with water then supplied to the laid ditch from local water sources.

When carrying out excavation work, special equipment is widely used: ditch diggers, excavators, bulldozers, graders, and other machines suitable for this work.

Peat fires cover large areas and are difficult to extinguish, especially large fires when a layer of peat of considerable thickness burns. The main way to extinguish an underground peat fire is to dig in the burning peat area with protective ditches. Ditches are dug 0.7-1.0 m wide and deep to mineral soil or groundwater. When carrying out excavation work, special equipment is widely used: ditch diggers, excavators, bulldozers, graders, and other machines suitable for this work. Digging begins from the side of objects and settlements, which can catch fire from burning peat. The fire itself is extinguished by digging up the burning peat and pouring it with a very large amount of water, since the peat almost does not get wet. To extinguish burning stacks, caravans of peat, as well as extinguish underground peat fires, water is used in the form of powerful jets. Water is poured into places where peat burns underground and on the surface of the earth.

Great value for mitigation natural Disasters It has timely notification about them, which will allow the necessary measures to be taken to protect people and material assets. Depending on the nature of the natural disaster and the conditions of its occurrence, the population is notified about it by the civil defense headquarters through all possible communication channels - radio broadcasting, television and using sound signals.

The signal about a fire in a forest or peat bog is transmitted in the established order:

From patrol aircraft (helicopters) aviation fire department- fire-chemical stations of forestry enterprises;

The person on duty from the fire observation tower (forester, fire watchman) - to the state forest protection service or to the corresponding forestry enterprise. Having received the signal, the forest protection service and forestry enterprises organize fire extinguishing and alert the population about the fire by radio, telephone or sound signals.

Fire extinguishing tactics depend on the size of the fire and the intensity of burning at the frontal edge. There is the following classification of fire:

A (sunbathing) .................................................... ......................less than 0.2 hectares.

B (small fire)................................................... ...................0.2 - 2.0 hectares.

B (small fire)................................................... ..........2.1 - 20 hectares.

G (medium fire)................................................... .................21 - 200 hectares.

D (major fire)................................................... ...............201 - 2000 hectares.

E (catastrophic fire)...................................more than 2000 ha.

Extinguishing a Class A fire does not require any special techniques. But fires of class B, C, D and others require certain tactics. In the process of extinguishing a fire, there are 4 sequential operations: stopping the fire, localizing it, guarding and extinguishing.

Experience shows that field trunk pipelines (FMP), which are used to equip the Armed Forces, can help in solving these issues Russian Federation. For the first time in domestic practice, they were used on a large scale in August 1972 to eliminate massive fires in the center and east of the European part of the country, where forest and peat fires spread over a vast territory (Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod and other regions).

Peat fires– this is a difficult type of fire, in most cases they occur directly on natural areas, during which the peat layer burns. The development and occurrence of such fires occurs in swampy areas, as there is a lack of oxygen, which is caused by an excess of moisture. As a result, the decomposition of marsh plants does not occur completely and, over the course of several thousand years or centuries, accumulation occurs in the form of a homogeneous mass - peat.

The most dangerous for people and animals are those that occur in swamps that have been drained as a result of laying a drainage network for agricultural purposes, as well as in order to increase the productive characteristics of forests. Often the level of danger of fires associated with peat is not fully assessed.

Peat fires have a very interesting feature, which makes this type of fire quite dangerous to life. The peculiarity is that they take a very long time to flare up and also take a long time to spread, but the duration of such fires exceeds all types of fires.

In this article we will consider the main characteristics of peat fires, methods of extinguishing them, as well as what consequences they have for environment and man.

Types and causes of peat fires

The main reasons for the occurrence of fires in peat areas can be called the human factor. This is an incompletely extinguished fire after a picnic, an abandoned match or a smoldering cigarette butt, or the burning of dry grass.

In addition, peat is capable of spontaneous combustion when temperatures reach above 50 degrees Celsius. In summer, the soil surface can heat up to 52-54 degrees. This temperature is often enough for peat to ignite.

In rare cases, such a fire may be caused by a lightning strike. Often they are a continuation. An important characteristic is the moisture level of the peat. Typically, a period of prolonged drought contributes to the outbreak of fire. The top layer dries out greatly, and the humidity drops to 25% or less.

The peculiarity of a peat fire is that its depth depends on the level of groundwater. Fire starts on a dried surface and goes deep, where it can smolder for years.

Smoldering is considered the main flameless phase of peat forest fires. This process is supported by oxygen entering the lower layers of peat along with air. The speed of fire spread is low. The edge of a fire can move only a couple of meters per day. The combustion of peat is dangerous due to its stability, and the fact that when smoldering in deep layers, even heavy rains or downpours cannot affect them.

The types of peat fires differ depending on the number of fires that have arisen - single-focal and multi-focal. If fire is handled incorrectly, most often there is one source of fire, and in case of spontaneous combustion or from ground fires, the fire, deepening, can appear in several places at once, then they speak of a multi-focal type of fire. In such cases, it can be eliminated only by limiting the area with outbreaks by digging ditches. Water is poured into it from a nearby reservoir.

Peat fires are classified according to the depth and severity of burning of the layers. They can have weak (up to 25 cm), medium (25-50 cm) and strong (over 50 cm) burn depth.

The duration of peat fires can be several months, and sometimes even several years. Peat fires do not burn like an ordinary fire, they smolder, and a lot of smoke is released. It is noteworthy that in winter such fires do not stop, since the smoldering center itself is under reliable protection of a layer of peat or ash containing peat. Another feature is hidden combustion, which makes it quite difficult to determine exactly where the peat is burning. To stop the smoldering process, it is necessary to pour a large number of water or a special extinguishing agent.

Read about ways to extinguish this type of fire in this article:

How to detect such a fire? The answer is in this article:

Consequences of peat fires

Such underground fires cause enormous damage to forest plantations. They damage or completely destroy root system trees and shrubs, as a result the forest dies. This also affects the animal world. Animals are left without food and shelter, and in most cases the natural balance is disrupted.

Often there is no visible flame on the surface. This makes it dangerous for all living inhabitants of the forest and humans. main feature peat fires is that it is almost impossible to outwardly notice signs of underground decay, but burnt-out voids form below. Any careless step on peat terrain can end in tragedy for a person.

In addition, a strong gust of wind can transport smoldering peat dust and particles to other areas of the forest belt. As a result, new fires arise. When contacted with a human body, such peat wind turbulence causes severe burns.

Constant smoldering leads to the formation of smoke, soot, methane and hydrogen. This degrades air quality, which can trigger asthma attacks or allergic reactions in sick people.

As a rule, the main causes of peat fires are people and their rash actions, namely:

fires that were not put out after themselves;
discarded cigarette butts;
and much more.

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FEDERAL STATE GOVERNMENT

INSTITUTION "7 DETAIL FEDERAL

FIRE SERVICE IN THE KURGAN REGION"

ABSTRACT

Organization and conduct of basic actions to extinguish peat fires

Completed:

Chief of Guard of PC No. 3

Art. internal service lieutenant

Kurakin I.A.

Checked: Deputy squad leader -

Head of PC No. 3 FGKU

"7 OFPS in the Kurgan region"

Lieutenant Colonel of the Internal Service

Prokopyev I.V.

Kurgan

Introduction

The problem of peat fires in Russia is becoming increasingly urgent. In April, when the snow has completely melted, there is a greater threat of fires in dry grass and peat bogs. All this does not happen without human participation. Previously, this issue was not so acute in our country; people started talking seriously about firing squads only in last years. This year, completely different figures may appear in the Ministry of Emergency Situations reports on fire damage, casualties and damage to nature. In addition, the situation may worsen due to an increase in peat extraction in wetlands. The increase in the number of fires on peatlands is due to an increase in the scale of reclamation. By themselves, peat bogs burn infrequently and burn to a shallow depth. But in the case of drainage, where a layer of dry peat is very flammable and the fire travels several meters, it is almost impossible to extinguish the swamp. It is the burning of peatlands, not forests, that causes choking smog, which can lead to an increase in respiratory illnesses and deaths. The best preventive measure in such a situation is to inform the population about the problem itself, the causes of its occurrence and the consequences for both nature and humans.

1. general information

Peat is a product of incomplete decomposition of plant mass under conditions of excess humidity and insufficient aeration. Peat has the highest moisture capacity of all solid fuels. The main thermal characteristics of peat are its calorific value, as well as its thermal conductivity coefficient. The main combustible materials in peat are carbon (52-56% of the total mass) and hydrogen (5-6% of the total mass), in addition, peat contains from 30 to 40% oxygen atoms bound in the molecules of chemical substances, from which peat consists of. Peat fires are a special type of fire in natural areas, the danger of which is often underestimated by both citizens and authorities. local government responsible for fire safety and protection of the population from emergency situations. The most important feature Peat fires are that they flare up and spread very slowly, but can last a very long time - for many months, and sometimes even for several years. In the early stages of development, peat fires may seem completely harmless, but in the later stages, extinguishing them may require colossal forces and resources, which may not be within the power of the entire region to collect. Due to the fact that peat fires often go unnoticed in the early stages of development, their occurrence and spread are shrouded in many myths, the main one of which is that “drained peatlands always smolder, and it is almost impossible to completely extinguish them.” Peat fires have many of their own characteristics that make them very different from others. natural fires, and which must be taken into account when organizing the fight against them.

2. Where, how and why do peat fires occur?

Peat fires, compared to other types of fires in natural areas, are most associated with human activity. Living, undrained peat bogs burn very rarely; fires on them turn out to be fugitive, affecting only the surface layer of the peat deposit, since the lower layers remain saturated with water even in a hot, dry year. In the middle zone European Russia There are almost no large fires on undrained peatlands (for example, in the hot season of 2010, only one such fire was recorded). In the regions of Siberia and Far East With a more continental climate, undrained bogs may burn more often, but even in them it is drained peatlands that pose the greatest danger. In the vast majority of cases, the direct source of a peat fire is also a person. Due to the fact that the smoldering of peat develops slowly at first, a long time often passes from the occurrence to the detection of a peat fire - therefore, the causes and culprits of peat fires often remain unknown than the causes and culprits of forest fires. However, the main sources of fires on peat bogs are known: burning dry grass from last year, unattended fires, abandoned matches and cigarette butts, smoldering wads made of flammable materials, sparks from faulty mufflers of motorcycles and cars. In exceptional cases, self-ignition is possible, but it occurs only in piles (“caravans”) of peat collected and folded for drying. Due to the fact that the volume of peat extraction has sharply decreased over the past forty years, and most of the previously laid piles were used and burned, cases of spontaneous combustion of peat in abandoned peat deposits are becoming negligibly rare.

In recent years, methods for remote monitoring of fires in natural areas have become widespread, making it possible to identify, among other things, large burns of dry herbaceous vegetation on drained peatlands and abandoned peat deposits. This made it possible to establish a close connection between the spring burning of dry grass and the occurrence of peat fires: it turned out, firstly, that a significant proportion of peat fires, perhaps the majority, arise precisely from the spring burning of dry grass, and secondly, that the burning of dry grassy vegetation is the main way to quickly spread fire across the area of drained peatlands. The special role of dry grass fires in the occurrence of peat fires is due to the fact that these fires cover large areas (tens and hundreds of hectares), within which objects that contribute to the onset of peat smoldering are easily located - for example, dry stumps, sleepers from narrow-gauge railways. railways etc. One large fall of dry grass can lead to the appearance of many, sometimes dozens, of smoldering peat areas at once. Thus, the main and most dangerous cause of peat fires is the burning of dry grassy vegetation in the spring or during summer droughts.

3. What is the special danger of peat fires?

The particular danger of peat fires is associated with three main circumstances.

Firstly , peat fires emit many times more smoke per unit area of an active fire than forest and, especially, grass fires. Considering that a peat fire can be active and actively smoke for months, the amount of smoke it produces can be hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the amount of smoke produced by a forest fire of comparable area. Smoke from wildfires is extremely dangerous for people with diseases of the cardiovascular system and respiratory system; its high concentration can lead to an increase in mortality. Peat fires, which produce the largest amount of smoke, pose the greatest danger from this point of view. In addition, large forest fires create powerful upward air currents, due to which a significant part of the smoke is immediately emitted to a very high altitude (in the largest fires - more than ten kilometers) and disperses into the atmosphere. During peat fires, as a rule, such powerful upward flows do not form, and a significant part of the smoke remains in the ground layers of air. Smoke from large peat fires in a concentration dangerous to health can spread over a distance of up to several hundred kilometers (for example, during the period of the heaviest smoke in Moscow in July-August 2010, the bulk of the smoke came from burning peat bogs in the Meshcherskaya Lowland, the distance from which to the capital is 120-180 km).

Secondly , a peat fire can last a very long time, and it is extremely difficult to extinguish it if it was not done at the earliest stage. In summer, a peat fire is a constantly smoldering wick, ready to lead to fires in adjacent areas when dry, hot and windy weather sets in. Many peatlands, including drained ones, are located in areas with a predominance of poor, dry soils and forest types characterized by increased fire danger (for example, in the Meshchera Lowland and other woodlands), which increases the danger associated with constantly active fires. In hot and dry weather conditions, when fire danger in forests is highest; long-lasting peat fires divert large amounts of effort from fighting newly occurring forest fires.

Third , in many regions of Russia, drained peat bogs and abandoned peat deposits in the past were primarily given over to gardening and dacha partnerships, as the most useless land for the state. As a result, holiday villages with an area of many thousands of hectares, consisting of tens of thousands of individual plots, appeared in some places on drained peatlands. In such conditions, peat fires can be extreme threat, associated not only with smoke, but also directly with fire, for a huge number of people at the same time, and the source of fire is almost always located on such peat bogs (taking into account the domestic traditions of extremely careless handling of fire).

4 . How peat fires develop and act

The development of peat fires is caused by a complex of climatic, meteorological, topographic factors and depends on:

Duration of the dry period;

Wind speed;

Solar radiation intensity;

Time of day;

Air temperatures;

Humidity, structure and compaction of peat deposits;

Degree of peat decomposition;

Terrain;

Presence of fire barriers;

Groundwater level, etc. The development of a peat fire is significantly different from the development of a forest fire or grass fire. Pure peat, even dry, practically does not burn in a fire - it only smolders, emitting a large amount of smoke and leaving a large amount of ash. Open burning occurs, as a rule, when smoldering reaches dry plant residues that are part of the peat or located on the surface of the peat bog - leaves, grass, branches, plant roots, fresh or fossil stumps (so-called stumps), etc. Peat smoldering itself spreads relatively slowly and is very dependent on the moisture content of the peat. In the surface layers of a drained peat bog, the smoldering of peat in dry and warm weather spreads, as a rule, several tens of centimeters per day. In deeper layers, smoldering spreads more slowly due to greater humidity and lack of air. The spread of smoldering peat over a large area, sometimes up to several tens of thousands of hectares, occurs not due to the growth of the fire source inside the drained deposit, but due to the rapid spread of fire through dry herbaceous vegetation on the surface of the peat bog. Most often, a peat bog catches fire, especially in the spring, where there are some large and relatively dry plant remains and other objects that can easily ignite from the burning of dry grass or other causes (for example, tree stumps, large branches, or abandoned sleepers from narrow-gauge railways). railways). Such objects are always found on the surface of a drained peat bog. Peat fires are most likely to occur in well-drained areas - for example, peat dumps along drainage canals, on road embankments and similar places. At first, the resulting smoldering center of peat expands and deepens very slowly, especially if it occurs in the spring, when even drained peat deposits are still saturated with water. During the first few weeks, the area of such a lesion can reach several square meters, and the burning depth is several tens of centimeters (in well-drained places, as well as near tree roots, the burning depth can be greater). As the drained peat deposit loses the water reserves accumulated during the spring snowmelt, the rate of expansion of the peat smoldering center increases. In persistently dry weather, the most intense smoldering and the most rapid expansion of the fire occurs on the surface itself. If heavy rains begin and the surface layers of the peat become saturated with water, smoldering near the surface may slow down or even stop, and as a result of the spread of the smoldering center in the deeper layers of the peat, a burnout closed at the top may form, which poses a particular danger to those who extinguish this fire . As a rule, even the largest and longest-lasting peat fires cover only the surface layers of peat deposits, most often to a depth of 30-50 centimeters, only going to greater depths in some areas. The idea that peat fires go deep to many meters, or even tens of meters, is nothing more than a legend. But even with a peat burning depth of 30-50 centimeters, a peat fire burns tens of times more combustible materials than a strong crown fire in a forest. Peat fires can operate even in winter, including during very severe frosts. Peat has a very high heat-insulating ability, due to which frost has almost no effect on the smoldering of peat at a depth of several centimeters. The intensity of peatland smoldering in winter depends on the amount of snow and the thickness of the residual peat deposit. As a rule, a layer of peat of 30-40 centimeters is quite enough to maintain smoldering throughout the winter. The main part of the peat smoldering centers that survived even the most severe winter frosts die out during the spring snowmelt, when the peat deposit is saturated with water. However, in drained areas that are not flooded with meltwater in the spring, smoldering peat areas can persist until spring and subsequently become sources of new peat fires. peat fire fighting gas

5 . Detection of peat fires

It is difficult to detect a peat fire in a timely manner - much more difficult than a forest fire. This is due to the fact that in the early stages of development, a peat fire can be very small, emit very little heat and smoke, and therefore completely invisible to existing remote monitoring systems, cameras with thermal imagers or observer pilots. That's why a vital role in the early detection of peat fires belongs to ground surveys of particularly dangerous areas. Fortunately, the area of drained peat bogs and abandoned peat deposits on a national or even regional scale is relatively small compared to the area of forests and other natural areas, so it is quite possible to organize a ground survey of particularly dangerous areas. At the same time, publicly available remote fire monitoring systems, such as FIRMS or SFMS, or departmental system ISDM-Rosleskhoz Federal agency forestry These systems almost do not allow the detection of peat fires themselves in the early stages of development, but they make it possible to detect burns of dry herbaceous vegetation and forest fires on the surface of drained peat bogs - and it is these burns and fires that in most cases are either the causes of the occurrence of smoldering peat fires or their methods spreading over large areas. The data from these fire monitoring systems, with the exception of the last one, is publicly available and free, and anyone can use them, provided they have a computer and access to the Internet.

The use of standard methods of remote fire monitoring (FIRMS, SFMS and ISDM systems) for early detection of peat fires gives the best results from approximately the end of April to mid-May (in the conditions of central European Russia). These dates may shift slightly in one direction or another depending on the weather conditions of a particular year. It is during this period that the main peak of burning of dry herbaceous vegetation occurs, including on drained peatlands. Most fires, especially on the surface of peat bogs, are recorded by remote monitoring systems, since such fires generate a large amount of heat (and the fires can cover a much larger area than the one in which “thermal spots” are identified from the images). Burnt fires, as a rule, leave behind numerous pockets in which the peat begins to smolder. These fires at the earliest stages of their development do not yet pose a great danger, and after the end of the season of massive spring burning of dry grass, there are still two to four weeks left, depending on the weather, during which incipient peat fires can still be extinguished with small forces. It is during these two to four weeks that it is very important to conduct a massive survey of drained peatlands to identify possible fires (see below).

It should be especially noted that using remote methods it is still impossible to identify all grass burns on the surface of peat bogs - some of the fires remain unnoticed. In addition, in the spring, peat smoldering may occur due to other reasons (abandoned fires, cigarette butts, etc.). Therefore, it is extremely important to organize a ground survey not only of those areas where dry grass burns were detected by remote methods, but also of other particularly dangerous areas of drained peatlands (namely, peatlands adjacent to populated areas, holiday villages, infrastructure facilities, as well as places of mass destruction). recreation, hunting, fishing and poaching on the edges or within the boundaries of drained peatlands). Ground inspection gives the best results in the early evening hours, when the characteristic smell of smoldering peat is usually felt best (it is this smell that makes it possible to detect peat fires at the earliest stages of their development). When examining a drained peat bog, special attention must be paid to those areas where the occurrence of smoldering peat is most likely - dumps and slopes of drainage canals, embankments of various roads, camps for hunters, fishermen and tourists, micro-highs formed when trees are felled with roots, heaps of dead dry wood on places of past fires, piles of peat.

6 . General features of fighting peat fires

Peat fires arise and develop in peat bogs - swamps or former swamps, where, due to a lack of oxygen caused by excess moisture, the remains of bog plants did not completely decompose, but accumulated over many millennia or centuries in the form of a relatively homogeneous brown mass - peat. Peat bogs usually include swamps where the thickness of the peat deposit (layer of accumulated peat) is at least thirty centimeters. In European Russia, the thickness of peat deposits in the vast majority of peat bogs does not exceed three to five meters, and only in some exceptional cases does it reach ten to twelve meters. Stories that in Meshchera or the Upper Volga region the depth of peat deposits reaches hundreds of meters, and the burning of peat can spread to such depths is nothing more than a fairy tale. Natural undrained peatlands rarely burn, and the actual peat on them burns even less often. Fires on such peatlands can occur in particularly dry years, but they, as a rule, affect only the uppermost layers of the peat - dried sphagnum moss or dry vegetation on the surface of the bog. Such fires are usually short-lived and similar to forest ground or forest floor fires. Fires on undrained peatlands themselves, as a rule, do not cause a great danger to people - they are dangerous mainly for the swamp ecosystems themselves and for the adjacent forests, to which the fire can spread.

The most dangerous peat fires occur in drained peat bogs - swamps that have been drained by laying a special network of drainage canals (drainage network) for the purpose of extracting peat, growing crops or increasing forest productivity. Here the upper layers of peat dry out to a considerable depth, and the atmospheric air, and conditions are created for the smoldering of peat. By itself, a drained peat deposit cannot catch fire (spontaneously ignite) - in any case, such cases have not been reliably recorded. In some cases, if peat is piled up (hills, waste heaps, caravans) for drying and subsequent removal from the peat deposit, conditions may arise for its self-heating due to the activity of microorganisms to a temperature at which its smoldering can begin. Such cases are rare and are becoming increasingly rare as production has declined steadily over the past forty years due to economic reasons, and the piles of peat left from the past at most deposits were either taken away or burned. In the vast majority of cases, the cause of a peat fire is arson, and only in the rarest of exceptional cases - spontaneous combustion. The peculiarity of peat fires themselves is that peat does not burn with an open fire - it smolders, emitting a large amount of smoke. The rate of smoldering strongly depends on the moisture content of the peat and the temperature. Smoldering of peat can continue even in winter, and even in very severe frosts, since the areas of direct smoldering are covered from the cold by overlying layers of peat or peat ash. Only thorough mixing of smoldering peat with a large amount of water or snow can stop the smoldering process. Since peat smolders for a long time, and the intensity of smoldering varies greatly over time, the depth of burning is used to characterize the intensity of peat fires. Based on the average burning depth, peat fires are divided into weak (up to 25 cm), medium (25-50 cm), and strong (over 50 cm). Even with the most powerful and prolonged fires on drained peatlands, a layer of peat of more than one meter almost never burns through in one season. Only in some of the most well-drained or elevated areas, for example, in peat piles or on the dumps of main canals, the depth of burning in one season can reach several meters. Such areas, as a rule, make the greatest contribution to the formation of smoke during a peat fire.

7 . Extinguishing peat fires

In case of fire the following are possible:

The rapid spread of fire over the surface of a peat field, the emergence of new fires as a result of the burning of peat and the throwing of burning particles and sparks over considerable distances when strong wind, as well as the formation of a fire tornado;

The spread of fire to nearby settlements, objects, agricultural land, forests, piles and caravans of peat;

Collapse of the surface layer during the formation of burnouts inside the deposit, sudden fall of trees growing in this area, failure of people and equipment into burnouts;

Rapid spread of fire inside a stack of extracted peat and along its surface;

Emission of a large amount of smoke with smoke covering a large area.

When conducting fire extinguishing operations, it is necessary to:

Determine the direction and speed of fire spread, the thickness of the peat layer and its uniformity, the most dangerous areas, as well as the presence of buildings and threats to them;

Use trunks with high flow rate when extinguishing burning stacks of sod peat, stacks of milled peat - trunks with sprayed jets of water with wetting agents while simultaneously removing (combing) the burned layer of peat;

Clarify the availability of all types of water sources, their volume and the possibility of using them to extinguish a fire, if necessary, create a supply of water by building new reservoirs and raising the water level in canals;

Outline localization boundaries along the perimeter of the fire, using main, shaft and kart canals, dry areas, railway lines, etc., distribute forces and means along them, assign tasks to units at each stage of work;

Use for creating fire breaks and dismantling stacks technical means equipment available at the peat enterprise (caravanning machines, etc.);

To create, by deep milling, the removal and moistening of dry peat with the compaction of the protective strip;

Organize the protection of non-burning stacks by abundantly wetting them with spray jets, throwing them with damp peat mass;

Post guards from the fire department or the local population, as well as in places where fire may spread from a peat enterprise or deposit, and establish round-the-clock surveillance of the territory after the fire is extinguished;

Comply with occupational health and safety regulations when performing assigned tasks.

The easiest way to extinguish a peat smoldering fire is at the earliest stage, when it just begins to go deep into a drained peat bog - for example, an unextinguished fire thrown on peat, a fire starting from an unextinguished cigarette butt or fallen dry grass. If there is a shortage of water, a very small area of smoldering peat can simply be dug up entirely (burning peat with adjacent layers of cold peat), placed in tin buckets, troughs or similar containers, and transported to the nearest body of water, where it can be dumped into the water and mixed with necessary until a homogeneous cold mass is formed. If there is no reservoir, you can take the burning material to an area with non-combustible soil (sand, clay) and mix it with a shovel until the burning stops and it cools completely. If the peat bog is shallow, then all the peat should be dug up to the underlying non-combustible soil, and all the peat adjacent to the hearth (not yet burning) 20 cm around. If the peat bog is deep and there is more to the underlying soil than can be dug, then all the burning peat and another 10-15 cm of non-burning (cold) peat are removed.

If there is sufficient water nearby, you need to supply water to the fireplace (with a motor pump, buckets) and mix it with a shovel until a homogeneous cold mass is formed in the fireplace. In this case, it is necessary to cut off the areas of non-burning peat adjacent to the hearth with a shovel (at least 20 cm along the entire perimeter around the hearth), and also mix with water. If the peat bog is shallow, then it is advisable to mix the entire layer of peat with water up to the underlying soil, mixing cold wet peat with the underlying non-combustible mass (sand, clay). If the peat bog is deep, then you need to mix not only the burning top layer (loose, hot), but also the lower layers of peat (20-30 cm below the bottom of the hearth), thoroughly crushing the peat mass and mixing it with water.

If you have water supply equipment (motor pumps, fire truck etc.) water should be supplied in a compact stream, washing away and mixing the burning peat. It is advisable to additionally mix the resulting mass with shovels, breaking up lumps and caked-on solid areas. With this method of water supply, the average water consumption is about 1 ton per cubic meter of burning material. If the fireplace is deep (deeper than 20 cm), it is better to first apply water to the center of the fireplace, pushing it with a compact stream to the bottom of the fireplace and mixing the resulting mass. After this, wash off the edges of the fireplace and the adjacent areas of peat. IN otherwise(starting from the edges), there is a risk of pouring cold mass on top and not noticing the remaining hot areas in the center (at the bottom), which in a few days will lead to the resumption of smoldering.

In some cases (fires on abandoned peat piles, caravans, when fires quickly go to great depths), it can be useful to use peat trunks TS-1 and TS-2. The trunks are buried to the depth where the peat is expected to smolder, and are rearranged 30-40 cm after the water saturation of the treated area becomes visually noticeable ( cold water without steam, it breaks out to the surface 20-30 cm around the point of entry of the barrel). If possible, peat stems are inserted, surrounding the hearth with two rows of punctures (stem insertion points) - the first row is 10 cm from the visible edge, and the second row is 30 cm from the first. If possible, after treating the area with peat trunks, it is advisable to finally wash away the remaining peat with a compact stream from ordinary RS-70 or RSK-50 trunks, or at least check the reliability of extinguishing with a thermometer probe. The use of wetting agents and foaming agents (as wetting agents), and combustion inhibitors when extinguishing peat fires shows itself well. The addition of wetting agents reduces the water consumption for extinguishing a cubic meter of peat by 30-40 percent, and when using peat trunks, it significantly increases the reliability of extinguishing. If you have heavy tracked equipment, you can use it to extinguish the peat bog at an early stage. Extinguishing is also done by mixing burning peat with moist, non-burning peat; It is also advisable to mix it with the underlying non-combustible soil.

If the peat bog burns for a long time, this technology may not be applicable due to the high risk of falling into burnouts, a large number of rubble that makes work difficult, and high temperature (there is a lot of smoldering material; when mixed with the underlying soil, the mechanisms become very hot). Heavy equipment is most important for creating access roads to the fire site and for creating temporary dams to raise water levels.

Often, especially in the spring, burning peat fires can be literally drowned by creating temporary dams on drainage ditches slightly below the burning fire. This method is especially good when the burning source is a short distance from the drainage ditch and when it is not located on a hill. Unfortunately, peat fires often occur precisely in the highest areas - on ditch dumps, on natural elevations, on abandoned peat piles. In this case, creating a dam and raising the water level will create the necessary supply of water for extinguishing, and will also limit the possible spread of fire.

To create a dam, it is better to choose a site where minimal labor costs for its creation will be required, and where dismantling the dam will not be difficult later. A good place for the construction of a dam - pipe crossings (bridges over ditches for the passage of equipment, which are usually based on reinforced concrete pipes). Sometimes you can use the water seals that have been preserved at such crossings (devices for blocking the flow - metal sluices with mechanisms for opening and closing). Wooden panels selected according to shape and size can be inserted into the pipes. Such temporary dams can be easily dismantled later. If there is no pipe crossing nearby or it is impossible to install a wooden damper, then you can make a dam from peat. To do this, it is advisable to use peat packed in plastic bags. If tree trunks are also used to add strength, they should be laid across the ditch (trunks laid along will create voids through which water will flow). It is advisable to compact the body of the dam during construction (by driving equipment along it).

With any dam design, if water should rise to the edges of the ditch and spill into the space above the dam, it is necessary to prepare a channel for the flow of water, otherwise such a channel will form on its own, perhaps in a place that is unsuccessful from the point of view of further fire fighting. When peat burns at storage sites (piles, stacks, caravans), at mining sites (milled peat in mining fields), extinguishing is complicated by the fact that dry burning peat is quickly carried by the wind, creating new fires. Often, “peat tornadoes” occur in large burning areas - air vortices that carry peat particles over long distances, overcome ditches with water and cause the appearance of new fires in previously unburned areas.

In such cases, it is necessary to apply not only compact jets for extinguishing, but also, if possible, to wet the surface of the burning caravan or open areas with spray jets, preventing the outbreaks from swelling.

When extinguishing deep peat fires that have spread over large areas, often extinguishing over the entire area becomes impractical (does not lead to success due to the inability to concentrate the required amount of equipment and people due to lack of water). The only possible tactics are either watering (flooding) the burning area, or creating deep (down to the underlying soil) ditches filled with water around the burning fires, and fighting new fires formed from the transfer of sparks or burning peat to the protected area.

8 . Seasonal features of fighting peat fires

Unlike forest fires and burning of dry grassy vegetation, peat fires develop and last a long time - for several months, and sometimes even years. Most peat fires start in spring or summer and end in late fall, winter, or the following spring when the snow melts. The size of a peat fire, the intensity of smoke emission and the threats associated with a peat fire increase very gradually, depending on the season of the year and weather conditions. In this regard, approaches to combating peat fires should change throughout the year with the changing seasons, taking into account the weather characteristics of each specific season.

9. Spring

The critical season for fighting peat fires is spring. It is in the spring that the burning of dry grass on the surface of drained peat bogs and abandoned peat deposits leads to the appearance of numerous centers of smoldering peat over vast areas. One fall of dry grass on a drained peat bog can cover an area of tens or hundreds of hectares, and lead to the appearance of dozens of small foci of smoldering in suitable places - for example, on the dumps of drainage canals that quickly dry out in the spring. These smoldering centers may seem completely insignificant in area and pose no danger, but, as a rule, they do not go out on their own, persist until the summer heat, and almost each of them can become a source of a large peat fire in a dry summer. In addition, in the spring, on many drained peatlands, especially where there are large reservoirs, or where abandoned peat fields are used as vegetable gardens, a large number of people appear - hunters, fishermen, gardeners. Many of them don't care about the rules fire safety, leaving fires, throwing unextinguished cigarette butts. Each fire left behind or a thrown cigarette butt can either cause dry grass to burn on the surface of the peat bog, or itself cause the peat to begin to smolder (the latter is less dangerous in the spring, since the peat is still wet, and a point source of fire most often does not cause the peat to ignite). And finally, a certain number of peat smoldering pockets, preserved from the previous year, survive until spring - as a rule, there are few such pockets, but they also pose a danger. In the spring, peat fires, as a rule, do not yet pose a direct danger to people, settlements and adjacent natural areas - due to the fact that peat deposits in the spring are still saturated with water (even drained), smoldering spreads very slowly and covers only the most superficial layers of peat . In addition, in the spring there is still a lot of water on drained peat bogs that is necessary for extinguishing - it is kept in almost all drainage canals, and, with rare exceptions, it does not need to be delivered from somewhere far away. Spring peat fires are relatively easy to extinguish: firstly, they rarely cover a large area and are usually represented by scattered fires up to several square meters in area, secondly, they rarely go deeper into the peat deposit more than a few tens of centimeters, and thirdly, There are almost always abundant sources of water nearby for extinguishing. As a rule, in the spring, heavy and expensive equipment is not needed to extinguish peat fires - a motor pump with a set of hoses and fire nozzles is enough, and even buckets and shovels if fires are detected very early. In the spring, the main task of fighting peat fires should be to quickly identify pockets of peat that are beginning to smolder, and to eliminate them as quickly and completely as possible. It is very important that this is liquidation, i.e. stopping the smoldering of peat at the entire depth, and not extinguishing the surface layer of peat to the stage when smoke stops coming from the peat bog. If even small pockets of smoldering peat remain deep in the peat bog, sooner or later they will grow again, come to the surface and become sources of new fires, but in the summer heat, when it will be hundreds of times more difficult to extinguish them.

10. Summer

In the first half of summer, significant reserves of moisture still remain in drained peatlands, so peat fires, as a rule, do not yet acquire catastrophic proportions. However, as peat deposits dry out, especially with little rainfall in May and June, they continue to grow and deepen. In most cases, peat fires in the first half of summer spread slowly over the surface of the peatland, due to the smoldering of the surface layers of peat, the burning of leaf litter or dry vegetation in the driest areas. Wet, fresh grass, especially with abundant rainfall, prevents the spread of fire and smoldering over the surface, so fires, with rare exceptions, still have a very limited area, in the worst cases amounting to a few hectares.

In the second half of summer, in drained peatlands, especially with little rain, minimal moisture reserves are retained, as a result of which already in July, and especially in August, the herbaceous vegetation begins to dry out. In dry and windy weather, such vegetation can flare up from pockets of smoldering peat, the fire can quickly spread over large areas and lead to the emergence of many new pockets of smoldering peat, or even to the smoldering of the entire surface of the peatland over many hundreds and even thousands of hectares. With this development of events, peat fires from local ones quickly, within a matter of days, turn into catastrophic ones, smoke emission increases many times over, an extreme threat arises to the forests adjacent to the peat bogs and nearby populated areas, as well as smoke from vast areas that is dangerous to the life and health of people. In summer, the risk of new sources of peat smoldering from point sources (unextinguished fires, abandoned cigarette butts, etc.) increases sharply, since the amount of water in drained peat deposits is greatly reduced. If dry and hot weather continues for a week or more, then the surface of the peat dries out so much that any thrown cigarette butt can cause the appearance of a new source of smoldering peat, which will grow rapidly - faster than the source formed on a still wet peat bog in the spring. In the summer, most peat fires can no longer be extinguished with small forces - even extinguishing fires that have not yet become catastrophic requires the involvement of hundreds of people, a large amount of specialized machinery and equipment. During hot and dry summers, firefighters have to distribute forces and equipment between peat and forest fires, so there are almost never enough people or equipment to fully fight peat fires. Unlike in the spring, when all efforts should be aimed specifically at the complete elimination of all peat fires, in the summer a reasonable combination of measures is necessary to eliminate those peat fires that can still be eliminated with existing forces, and measures to reliably localize the rest - to create barriers that prevent the spread fire and smoldering to the surrounding areas, without extinguishing until late autumn or winter.

11. Autumn

In autumn, after the onset of prolonged rains, the danger of peat fires spreading to adjacent areas, including forests and populated areas, practically disappears (with the possible exception of isolated dry and warm periods - the so-called “Indian summer”). Smoke emission from burning peatlands is also greatly reduced. The odor of peat smoke may linger in surrounding areas well into winter, but smoke concentrations in the fall outside the burning peat bogs themselves almost never reach levels that pose a risk to human health. By autumn, peat smoldering areas reach their maximum depth, and extinguishing them requires great forces, comparable to those required in summer. At the same time, rains, and at the end of autumn snow, have a much greater impact on peat fires than the measures taken by people (for comparison: during an average autumn in the conditions of the Moscow region, approximately the same amount of water falls on each hectare of burning peatlands as can be dropped by an airplane - the Be-200 amphibian for two hundred drops, or how much it can be brought by tanker truck at the Ural base for six hundred flights). Taking this into account, in most cases it turns out to be more reasonable not to spend huge amounts of effort on extinguishing fires that are weakening every week, but to entrust the fight against them to the forces of nature, ensuring only that they guard the boundaries of fires during the warm and dry periods of autumn.

12. Winter

In winter, peat fires that were not extinguished in summer and autumn continue to operate, but the intensity of peat smoldering and smoke emission decreases sharply. After heavy snowfalls, the emission of smoke may practically cease, and some smoldering peat areas may become invisible for many days (although the snow melts quickly over large areas). During snowless periods, even frosty ones, the intensity of peat smoldering increases, but in general it decreases over time, closer to spring, and many fires die out during the winter. The largest number of peat fires finally disappears at the end of winter and beginning of spring, with the beginning of snow melting. By spring, only in some areas there are still isolated pockets of smoldering peat, usually looking completely harmless and not dangerous. However, they may well wait for spring warmth and become sources of new large peat fires.

13. Peat fires in Russia

The driest and hottest summers and, accordingly, the most severe peat fires in our memory were in 1972, 2002 and 2010. According to environmentalists, in 2010 peatlands burned over a much larger area and much more intensely than in previous years. The peat fires of 2010 caused serious damage to the environment. Thousands of hectares of forest were lost, and significant damage was caused to flora and fauna. This disaster forced us to look for ways to reduce the area of peat fires. In Central Russia, a large area of land contains peat. There are about 60,000 hectares of peat deposits in the Moscow region. Basically, peat lies deep, forming entire layers. According to research, about 10,000 hectares of peatlands are constantly burning and smoldering, incl. in winter.

From memories of 1972:

In 1972, not only professional firefighters and the regular army, but also mobilized local population- both local collective farmers and Moscow workers sent from factories according to orders from the party committees were involved in the fire extinguishing. Often we had to fight fires at night, when the smoldering peat was practically invisible. In the dark and with heavy smoke, it was very difficult to accurately navigate, to determine whether the road was intact, or whether an insidious underground fire had approached it from below. Cars with military personnel and mobilized heavy equipment fell into the inferno of peat burns. Army explosives technicians were used everywhere to create barrier strips in the path of fire spread. Unconventional extinguishing methods were also used. So, someone at the top came up with the idea of filling the fires with concrete, and thousands of cement trucks went into the forests to pour concrete solution onto the burning peat bogs.

Conclusion

In recent decades, the issue of climate change has become an acute issue throughout the world. Peat fires are one of the sources of greenhouse gases that have a direct impact negative impact on the climate, delaying solar radiation reflected from the Earth in the atmosphere and, thus, changing the thermal balance of the entire planet. Responsibility for extinguishing forest and peat fires falls on public services with special equipment. But in emergency cases, in order to protect the farm and people from danger, both volunteers and residents of nearby settlements can take part in the firefighting. However, it’s still better that things don’t end up in a fire. To do this, you need to know the precautions for handling fire during a fire hazard period:

Do not light a fire in the forest or on peat bogs;

Do not throw matches and cigarettes into the grass, and also avoid smoking in the forest;

During the fire danger period, do not drive into the forest by car or motorcycle: sparks from the muffler can cause a fire;

If you notice a small fire, try to put it out yourself; often it is enough to stomp out the fire; if the fire is strong and you cannot put it out, be sure to report the fire by calling 101.

Bibliography

1) Greenpeace Russia Forest Forum website;

3) Reference guide for eliminating forest and peat fires / comp. A.M. Segodnik, etc. - Grodno: Grodno Regional Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Belarus, 2012. - 160;

4) website torfyanye-pozhary-2010.html

5) website BEZBOLOT.NET

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✪ Forest and peat fires and their characteristics | Cool watch and life safety #76 | Info lesson

✪ Prevention of forest and peat fires. Protection of the population | Cool watches and life safety #77 | Info lesson

✪ Forest fire

Subtitles

Causes of peat fires

Anthropogenic factor

In the vast majority of cases, the direct source of a peat fire is a person. Due to the fact that the smoldering of peat develops slowly at first, a long time often passes from the occurrence to the detection of a peat fire - therefore, the causes and culprits of peat fires often remain unknown. However, the main sources of fires in peatlands are known:

last year's dry grass fell,
unattended fires,
abandoned matches and cigarette butts,
smoldering wads made of flammable materials,
sparks from faulty mufflers of motorcycles and cars.

Spontaneous combustion of peat

According to O.S. Misnikov, Doctor of Technical Sciences, spontaneous combustion of peat deposits is a myth. Only extracted peat in a pile can spontaneously ignite, and then only under a confluence of circumstances.

Dangers of peat fires

Smoke

Peat fires produce many times more smoke per unit area of active fire than other types of fires. Considering that a peat fire can be active and actively smoke for months, the amount of smoke it produces can be hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the amount of smoke produced by a forest fire of comparable area.

Peat fires, which produce the largest amount of smoke, pose the greatest danger from this point of view. During peat fires, as a rule, such powerful upward flows do not form, and a significant part of the smoke remains in the ground layers of air. Smoke from large peat fires in concentrations hazardous to health can spread over distances of up to several hundred kilometers.

Smoke from wildfires is extremely dangerous for people with diseases of the cardiovascular system and respiratory system; its high concentration can lead to an increase in mortality.

The occurrence of other fires

In summer, a peat fire is a constantly smoldering wick, ready to lead to forest and grass fires in adjacent areas when dry, hot and windy weather sets in.

On some drained peatlands there are holiday villages, and peat fires can pose an extreme threat to them, associated not only with smoke, but also directly with fire.

Failures of people and technology

Peat fires create the danger of people and equipment falling into the burnt-out soil (burnout), and therefore it is recommended to be careful and not stay in the burnt-out area.

Peat slowly burns to its entire depth, which can reach 1.5-2 meters. Burnt-out areas are dangerous because sections of the road, houses, cars or people fall into them. They maintain a high temperature for a long time after burning out, so a person who falls in the area of a peat fire is doomed.

Falling trees with burnt roots

Outwardly, the trees above the smoldering peat bogs look intact, but due to the smoldering roots, the trees begin to unexpectedly fall, most often with their tops towards the center of the hearth. Burnt dead wood, in order to avoid a sudden fall, is recommended to be cut down or cut down.

Prevention of peat fires

Educating the population about the causes of peat fires

There are many myths about peat fires, for example that peat combusts spontaneously and cannot be extinguished.

The real cause of peat fires is known. This is a person who often acts carelessly due to ignorance of the characteristics of peat as a combustible material. A fire built on peat soil or an unextinguished cigarette butt left on a drained peat bog is almost guaranteed to lead to a peat fire.

The destructive tradition of spring grass burning also often leads to peat fires. But the beginning of a peat fire is extremely difficult to detect and often becomes known about it already in the summer, when it begins to smoke heavily. That's why people don't connect cause and effect.

If you convey to people information about the dangers of grass burning, about the need to comply with fire safety rules on peat soils and drained peatlands, you can avoid the occurrence of new fires.

In Russia, peat fires most often occur in the Vladimir, Ivanovo, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan regions.

Fire breaks

According to the Fire Safety Rules in Forests of the Russian Federation, which were approved by Decree of the Council of Ministers - Government of the Russian Federation dated September 09, 1993 No. 886, at peat enterprises it is required to install a fire break 75-100 meters wide with a water supply channel along the inner edge of the gap, with the removal of vegetation on a strip 6 wide meters.

Irrigation of peatlands

Watering previously drained peatlands can prevent their further fire. Deputy Director of the State Hydrological Institute Valery Vuglinsky proposes to eliminate previously dug drainage ditches and reclamation networks. Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Soil Science at Moscow State University Vladimir Goncharov believes that it is necessary to adopt Western experience in bilateral regulation water regime(depending on the presence of drought or abundance of moisture, pass the required amount of water to avoid drying out or flooding of the land). According to him, in Holland the humidity of 80% of peat lands is regulated in this way, and in Finland - 100%.

Extinguishing peat fires

The easiest way is to extinguish the smoldering peat at the earliest stage, when it just begins to go deep into the drained peat bog.

If there is a shortage of water, a very small area of smoldering peat can simply be dug up entirely (burning peat with adjacent layers of cold peat), placed in tin buckets, troughs or similar containers, and transferred to the nearest body of water, where it is dumped into the water and mixed if necessary until a homogeneous cold mass is formed. If there is no reservoir, you can take the burning material to an area with non-combustible soil (sand, clay) and mix it with a shovel until the burning stops and it cools completely.

If the peat bog is shallow, then all the peat should be dug up to the underlying non-combustible soil, and all the peat adjacent to the hearth (not yet burning) 20 cm around. If the peat bog is deep and there is more to the underlying soil than can be dug, then all the burning peat and another 10-15 cm of non-burning (cold) peat are removed.

If there is sufficient water nearby, you need to supply water to the fireplace (with a motor pump) and mix it with a shovel until a homogeneous cold mass is formed in the fireplace. In this case, it is necessary to cut off the areas of non-burning peat adjacent to the hearth with a shovel and also mix with water.

You need to mix not only the burning top layer (loose, hot), but also the lower layers of peat (20-30 cm below the bottom of the fireplace), thoroughly crushing the peat mass and mixing it with water. Water should be supplied in a compact stream, washing out and mixing the burning peat. It is advisable to additionally mix the resulting mass with shovels, breaking up lumps and caked-on solid areas. With this method of water supply, the average water consumption is about 1 ton per cubic meter of burning material. If you have heavy tracked equipment, you can use it to extinguish the peat bog at an early stage. Extinguishing is also done by mixing burning peat with moist, non-burning peat; It is also advisable to mix it with the underlying non-combustible soil.

Checking the quality of extinguishing

With any method of extinguishing a peat fire, the result must be carefully checked. To do this, after the area has cooled and after smoke and steam have ceased to be emitted, you should carefully check the temperature of the resulting wet mass of peat with your hand. If the mass is cold, you should feel the extinguished area with your hand along the edges and in depth to the bottom. For deep fires (more than half a meter), you should wait up to half an hour after supplying water and dig a small hole, feeling the temperature at different depths. It is advisable to dig down to deep layers of peat that have not been burned, to the groundwater level or to the underlying non-combustible mineral soil. If the entire fireplace is cold and filled to its entire depth with a homogeneous cold, wet mass of peat, you can consider it reliably extinguished and proceed, if necessary, to extinguishing the next one. At the same time, even verified lesions must be monitored further, for about a week. It is advisable to check their condition in the morning or evening, when the smoke is better visible and the smell of burning peat is better felt, and the contrast between the temperatures of smoldering and cold surfaces is better felt. If unextinguished areas are found, it is necessary to continue to fill them with water with even more thorough mixing. If smoldering in the fireplace has not resumed within a week, it can be considered reliably extinguished.

Ineffectiveness of water release by aviation

According to Artyom Zimenko, commander of the Nature Conservation Team of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University.

M.V. Lomonosov and the coordinator of the organization “Voluntary Forest Firefighters”, it is impossible to extinguish peat bogs with the help of aviation. A peat bog burns in the depths, not at the surface, and when water falling from a great height hits the soil, burning peat chips fly into the air, which only leads to an intensification of the fire.

In 2007, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Vladimir Region, Sergei Mameev, stated in an interview: “... this technique is not suitable for extinguishing peat bogs. Dumping water onto a peat bog will cause it to burn to a greater extent.” Peat bog conservation project coordinator Russian program

As a result of experimental studies of forest fire extinguishing, carried out using the IL-76 MD aircraft, it was found that the depth of soil wetting after water discharge is 5-7 cm. The results were reported at conferences in 1999-2001.

The practice of extinguishing fires in peat fields shows that the most common fire extinguishing agent is water. Good results in extinguishing peat are achieved by using wetting solutions, but using them for extinguishing large areas is uneconomical.

To submit fire extinguishing agents Fire trucks, motor pumps, fire trucks and peat mining tractors equipped with fire pumps, etc. are used.

Great influence on the success of extinguishing
provides knowledge of the current situation
new items on fire. The most complete
situational information is obtained during
fire reconnaissance. In the process of exploration
ki of fires in peat fields RTP dol
wives set: type of fire, fire
the area struck by fire in the direction
fire spread and speed
ra, boundaries of the fire front, thickness
peat layer and its homogeneity;
presence of threat to populated areas,
forest areas, railway
tracks, warehouses and other structures
niyam; presence of obstacles on the way
fire spread, types of water
sources, their capacity and possible
advantage of their use for extinguishing
fire.

Fire reconnaissance in peat fields

carried out by several reconnaissance groups. Employees of the peat enterprise are included in the reconnaissance group. It is advisable to apply all data coming from the reconnaissance group onto pre-designed tablets with copies from the general plan of the peat enterprise. When a fire occupies large areas, reconnaissance groups, in addition to reliable means of communication, must be provided with means of transportation.

Based on the data received, the RTP determines the decisive direction of action of the fire departments, outlines the boundaries within which it is necessary to stop the spread of the fire, adjusts the actions of all forces and means at its disposal, and makes decisions on the evacuation of the population from the working settlements of the peat enterprise.

When extinguishing peat fields, the available forces and means can be introduced:

simultaneously along the entire perimeter of the fire;

along the fire front with subsequent advance to the flanks and rear;

to the rear with subsequent advance along the flanks and front.

To extinguish a fire along the entire perimeter at the same time, forces and means can only be used if they are available in sufficient quantities to extinguish the circular

or a small area with angular fire development.

The concentration of forces and means on the fire front is carried out when there is a lack of forces and means to extinguish fires that have an angular development.

It is advisable to concentrate forces and resources primarily in the rear if there are barriers in front of the fire front that limit the spread of the fire.

When extinguishing fires in peat fields, the RTP must select an area (along the perimeter, front or rear) of the priority concentration of forces and means, based on the current situation on the fire and the available amount of forces and means at its disposal. In the event of a threat of fire spreading to populated areas, mining fields, forests, national economic facilities, etc., forces and means are primarily concentrated to protect them.

To extinguish milled peat, it is advisable to use spray jets. The supplied water for extinguishing peat cools the burning surface and also moistens the not yet burning peat. The specific water consumption for extinguishing peat in the spread is 8-12, and for the surface of caravans - up to 200 l/i 2 .

To extinguish fires in the fields of peat extraction and drying along the front on the leeward side, it is advisable to create two groups of working units: the first group eliminates the fire along the front of the combustion spread; the second is the emerging sources and thrown sparks, as well as the remaining sources of combustion. If there is a lack of manpower and means for extinguishing, workers from peat enterprises, as well as the population, are involved.

In cases where the fire has not yet reached a large size, but the direction of its development has already clearly formed, the available forces are primarily concentrated in this direction. If the direction of fire development is concentrated along the front

the required amount of forces and means, then the arriving units are sent to extinguish the fire along the flanks and rear.

The spread of burning to the rear and along the flanks can be limited by shifting dry milled peat towards the burning side. When exposed to fire, it will burn, and between the unburned peat field and the fire there remains a wet deposit, which for some time will not allow the fire to spread along the flanks and in the rear. The width of these stripes can be taken as 2-4 m, since in these directions the transfer of sparks occurs with a slight separation from the edge of the fire and the fire from them can be eliminated by forces at the rate of 1 person for every 100^200 m of the flank or rear of the fire.

Limiting the spread of combustion along the fire front can be done by creating a mineralized strip using a bulldozer or explosives. As fire extinguishing practice shows. ditch, the optimal width of the mineralized strips is 30-50 m, while forces and means are allocated to eliminate the sources of combustion formed from flying burning particles behind the mineralized strip.

When extinguishing fires in production areas, special attention is paid to the protection of populated areas, forests, caravans and peat windrows, field garages, bridges over ditches, etc. To protect non-burning caravans, it is necessary to allocate mobile operational groups (3-5 people) with trunks or buckets of water and shovels.

If there is a threat of a fire in a workers' village or populated area, the RTP allocates the required amount of forces and resources to protect the workers' village or populated area. In addition, the RTP organizes round-the-clock guard and patrol service in a workers' village or settlement by the population or the traffic police.

Burning caravans located on the production site are extinguished mainly with sprayed jets of water. When the fire has penetrated deep into the caravan, compact or spray jets are used through needle barrels. After the combustion on the surface of the caravan has stopped, its cooling continues. Moreover, the upper part of the surface of the caravans is cooled more intensively, since the flowing part of the water will also cool the upper layer.

To extinguish peat caravans, based on fire analysis, it is necessary to supply RSB trunks. The time to extinguish a caravan depends on the number of barrels supplied: with two RSB barrels, the time is about 10 hours.

Extinguishing underground fires is carried out mainly by digging them in with a ditch; in addition, such fires can be extinguished with water supplied through needle trunks.

The ditch must be deep to mineral soil or to the groundwater level with a width in the upper part of at least 0.75-1 m. This work can be carried out manually or special equipment. For more effective protection, it is advisable to fill the ditch with water.

To supply water during fires, drainage channels or reservoirs located at the peat processing plant are used. When using water supplied to drainage channels, the fire extinguishing director must provide for the regulation of its supply by sluices only to the shaft channels in the area of which combustion occurs.

If there is insufficient amount of water entering the canals, it is necessary to make dams or depressions in them at the points of water intake.

If access to water sources is poor, it is advisable to install motor pumps and tractors equipped with fire pumps.

Underground orphyan fires are extinguished with a weak solution of wetting agents, sulfanol NP-1; detergents

properties OP-7, OP-10, with concentration. 0.3-0.5% by weight.

When extinguishing peat fires, use trunks TS-1 (for fire depths up to 1 m) and TS-2 (for k = 2 m). Water is supplied to the shafts under a pressure of 0.3-0.4 MPa, the flow rate of water with a wetting agent is 35-42 l/min.

The fire localization width: with one barrel with a nozzle diameter of 13 mm is 10-15 m; and with a nozzle diameter of 19 mm - 20-30 m. To extinguish large fires and supply water in cases where water sources are located at a great distance from the fire site, it is advisable to use fire pumping stations (PNS-110).

When laying hose lines, a supply of hoses should be provided to ensure maneuverability of the trunks, and branches should be installed in the main lines.

In case of large fires, a fire extinguishing headquarters is organized, which includes representatives of the peat enterprise. When extinguishing a fire, combat areas and combat sectors are organized. It is advisable to take the service front of the combat area in such a way that it is in the field of view.

Combat sectors are created on the basis of one combat sector for each flank, front, and, if necessary, the rear of the fire.

When extinguishing fires in peat fields, it is very important to take into account weather station data on the weather report for the next day or even several days. Using these data, you can roughly determine how the fire will develop in the future and whether additional forces and resources will be required.

At each peat enterprise, taking into account its characteristics, the organization of extinguishing possible fires must be worked out in advance. For this purpose, a fire extinguishing plan is developed, which may consist of the following sections:

1. Characteristics of the peat enterprise -

Tia: location; total area of peat fields; peat extraction method; the number of engineering and technical employees and workers and their distribution among production sites; the number and fire safety conditions of workers’ settlements and the distance to them; characteristics of the vehicle fleet; fire brigade weapons; fire zones and characteristics of areas adjacent to the peat enterprise; the dominant direction of the winds (the deployment of fire extinguishing equipment and fire-technical equipment located at the peat enterprise with their distribution among production areas is attached).

2. Water supply: characteristic
water sources of peat fields and villages.
kov, number of reservoirs, their capacity
bridge and location; order is
use of water resources and regulation
regulation of water supply in the general system
water supply topic (attached
maps of fields with drawing on them
water supply systems).

3. Roads in villages, paths to
peat fields, points of concentration
turning equipment, people and basic
routes for delivering them to the place by
heat.

G. iuiolschspie iipilnitelnyh

forces and means: methods of attraction, priority, amount of effort and resources at the peat enterprise itself; ways to attract the population of the villages of peat enterprises and residents of nearby settlements, workers of factories, state farms, collective farms, military units. The number and name of arriving fire equipment are indicated; responsible persons for organizing and delivering assistance are determined. This section is coordinated with the relevant organizations from where it is supposed to call for help, with the UTY (OPO) of the region, territory, autonomous republic and is submitted before the spring-summer fire danger period for approval by the district executive committee. After approval, this section is brought to the attention of engineering and technical