Who is responsible for fire safety on natural areas and in settlements adjacent to natural areas
The effective legislation of the Russian Federation unclearly differentiates the duties of the government agencies, local authorities, proprietor and lessees of land plots, timber lands, buildings, as well as competent persons ensuring fire safety. That’s why it’s not always clear who exactly is responsible for fire safety of one or another natural area, settlement or site, and security of people living and working there.
In general fire safety is a task of the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Affairs for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (Ministry of Emergency Situations). According to the existing legislation the Ministry of Emergency Situations is responsible for development and realization of the state policy in the sphere of fire safety and protection of people and territories from the emergency situations, conducts managing, coordination, control and supervision. The Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation provides for creating of the information support systems, recording system of fire statistics and fire consequences, conducts fire-fighting operations in the settlements and other fire safety activities.
Forests are not on the list: providing for forest fire safety and forest fire-fighting do not belong to the tasks of the Ministry of Emergency Situations until fires reach a certain level of the emergency situation. But what level is the signal for the Ministry of Emergency Situations interfering with forest fire-fighting is quite unclear: according to the law it must be emergency situations of the federal level, but regarding the agreements concluded between the Ministry of Emergency Situations and regions, the emergency situations of regional and inter-municipal levels (any forest fires, if they are correctly taken account of) fall under the Ministry responsibility. However, the authorities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations usually reject the responsibility for fighting forest fires at all. A new classification of emergency situations connected with forest fires which is to clarify the issue shall appear in the year 2011, but considering the low quality of the new forest regulations the classification is supposed just to complicate the situation further.
The government agencies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are responsible for providing fire safety, teaching fire safety to the population, stimulation of providing fire safety, organization of participation of people in fighting and preventing forest fires and operative control over the divisions of the State Fire Service, they also provide for evacuation of people in the emergency situations regional and inter-municipal in scope.
The differentiation of the responsibilities between federal and regional government bodies is quite unclear as it is; but it is dramatized by the agreements concluded between the Ministry of Emergency Situations and administrations of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation according to which all powers are to be transferred from one level to another. These agreements are of indefinite status and usually kept in a secret. The point of the agreements is that the responsibility for elimination of emergency situations inter-municipal and regional in scope is partly to be placed on the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation.
Local government bodies are responsible for preventing fires (except for forest fires), including the creation of suitable conditions for the organization of volunteer fire brigades, for water extraction from outdoor water sources, providing common areas with fire extinguishing media, fire danger warning, fire isolation and rescuing the population and propriety before the arrival of fire brigade, setting special fire-prevention mode in case of increased fire danger, etc. The main part of the responsibility (providing primary fire safety measures) is placed on the government bodies of the settlements and urban districts, but not those of the inter-municipal regions.
The proprietors of the land plots as well as persons using land plots are responsible for providing fire safety measures in those land plots.
The system of responsibilities for forest fire-fighting is a separate case, it is regulated by the forest legislation, which is notable for its vagueness and changeability (during first six years 11 sets of amendments were inserted into the new Forestry Code adopted in 2006). According to the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation to the forest fires belong the following: fires in the Forest Fund forests, on the lands of defense and security, the lands of natural areas of preferential protection. It means that fires in the forests and shelter belts located on the lands of other categories (for example lands of agricultural designation or settlement lands) are not considered forest fires by the forest law, and forest regulatory authorities and forest organizations do not bear the responsibility for fire-fighting.
The Federal Forestry Agency is responsible for coordination of actions of forest fire-fighting in the Russian Federation, as well as state fire fighting service in forests, taking fire safety measures and fighting fires in Moscow region forests. In the forests of nature reserves and national parks, on the lands of defense and security the responsibility for fire safety is placed on the corresponding federal bodies of executive power (Ministry of natural resources and Ministry of Defence) and organizations subordinate to them.
The responsibility for fire safety in the Forest Fund forests outside Moscow region and settlements is placed on government agencies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Regional forest regulatory bodies provide for state fire service in forests (who is responsible and the way the service is performed are determined at the regional level). Fire safety measures in the not leased out or non-permanent forests and forest fire-fighting are provided either by qualified regional organizations or, if there is not any, by organizations that got the right for state contract conclusion. There are variant readings concerning the role of the lessees and other forest users by forest fire-fighting. The obligation (of the lessee and other forest user) to provide for fire safety arises not immediately upon lease contract conclusion, but after executing quite a number of bureaucratic procedures (contract state registration, drafting of “the forest opening project” and state environmental expert review of the project). Moreover, in many regions one tries to place the responsibility for fire-fighting on the lessees though formally it is not required by the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation.
As the result, in the forests, in the settlements and on the other territories the responsibility for fire safety is placed on different people and organizations and their activities are regulated by different laws and norms. The real coordination of actions between government bodies of different levels and organizations of different department participation almost does not exist (except for numerous meetings being held in the most cases just for show). In order to anyhow avoid the chaos at the level of municipal districts and regions the participatory action plans of different bodies on fire-fighting are often made up. Now for the forest fire-fighting the integrated plans must also be drafted for each region, which shall determine who and for what is responsible as well as plans of inter-regional maneuvering of fire forces and media. These plans were introduced just at the beginning of the year 2006 and it is still unclear how they are going to work in practice – most likely they are not any way.
In general the distribution system of responsibilities for fire safety in natural areas and settlements adjacent to those areas is best illustrated by the proverb “too many cooks spoil the broth”. The unified fire-fighting system for all natural areas irrespective of the land categories, propriety and department participation, do not exist. First of all it is the Ministry of Emergency Situation of the Russian Federation that is to blame for the state of things, which is responsible according to the effective legislation for development and realization of the state policy in the sphere of fire safety.