Drought, storms

Austrians underestimate the risk of forest fires

Austria's forests are persistently dry this winter.(Bild: APA/Helmut Fohringer)

Around every second person surveyed in Austria considers fires to be a threat to Austria's forests. The respondents perceive drought, storms and the bark beetle as greater challenges. "We still need to raise awareness here," said Andreas Gruber from the Austrian Federal Forests (ÖBf).

The persistent drought this winter makes the situation in the forests literally "highly dangerous", said board spokesman Georg Schöppl. Smoking and lighting fires should be completely avoided. "But what we can't do is water the forest on a large scale (...). We are dependent on nature". Forests cover almost half of Austria's territory.

In recent years, damage caused by windthrow has also increased, and trees under drought stress offer the bark beetle a better opportunity to attack. "What we are doing now is removing damaged wood as soon as possible so that there is as little dead material as possible for the bark beetles," said Gruber.

Damage from climate extremes doubled
"The next 100 years will certainly be no less turbulent than the past 100 years. In less than 30 years, forest damage caused by climate extremes and pests in Central Europe has doubled (...)", said Rupert Seidl, Chairman of the new ÖBf advisory board "Forest of the Future". The challenge is to find trees that can grow in both today's and tomorrow's climate. Climate warming is already happening within one generation of trees.

Currently, more firs, larches, beeches and oaks are coping with the consequences of climate change, while the proportion of spruce is decreasing.

For the ÖBf forest survey, 1015 people aged 16 and over were interviewed, who are representative of the Austrian population.