Bulgarian NAO audits forest fires
In 2014 BNAO conducted an audit on the forest fire prevention measures taken by governmental authorities of the Republic of Bulgaria and their preparedness to extinguish forest fires, as a part of co-ordinated audit leaded by the Russian Chamber of Control.
The audit highlights some administrative and legislative weaknesses of the proper implementation of statutory provisions, strategies and policies, which results in lower effectiveness of the forest fire protection. Currently efforts are taken to develop an efficient monitoring and compliance control mechanism.
The data about forest fires are contained in two information systems. During the audited period no measures ensuring the correctness of these data were in place, as well as no protocols were implemented for data transfer between the existing information systems.
Priorities for the period 2013 - 2020 include the improvement of efficiency of forest fire prevention measures and the public engagement in forest fire protection activities.
The planning of the national forest fund protection measures is based on the review of forest fire causes and risks. However the forest fire prevention efforts are weakened due to insufficient funding, disunity of national forest areas, and limited capabilities of local authorities and private forest owners.
BNAO found that there is a delay in analysis and evaluation of forest fires risk and the risk areas cartography.
Bulgaria has launched the establishment of the innovative Early Alert System. The automated fire detection and alert systems cover only 7 % of the country’s forest territories. The Aerospace Observation Centre suffers from low resolution capacity of images received, low frequency of data receipt and processing, and sensitivity to weather conditions. All these make difficult early detection of forest fires.
The level of people’s awareness of the fire safety rules in forests and the actions to be taken in case of forest fire occurrence is low. The state educational institutions implement training programs focused on forest fire safety issues. The information campaigns, announcements of increased fire risk for specifically affected regions appeared to be insufficient to reach all groups of the populations. The public believes that the activities of governmental bodies on fire extinguishing were more effective than the prevention measures.
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