Spring fires cause enormous damage to our nature!

In spring, as soon as the snow melts and last year's grass is revealed, many people take matches: they need to burn off the withered vegetation. Alas, such misguided gardeners deceive themselves and mislead others. In doing so, they cause immense damage to nature, disrupting its biocenosis and destroying insects, birds, and animals.

When grass is set on fire, all beneficial soil microflora perishes, including that which helps crops resist diseases. Restoration will take a considerable amount of time, which is so valuable to us in spring when plants gain strength. Many insects, their larvae, and pupae die. Ladybugs, ground beetles, earthworms, and others that destroy various garden and vegetable pests and participate in soil formation are burned in the fire.

Even animals can easily perish or be injured in the fire: especially newborn hares, hedgehogs, toads, and frogs. Some burn, while others suffocate in the smoke. By burning off grass and vegetation (which we consider unnecessary), we ourselves alter the grass cover, significantly impoverishing it. After fires, only the coarsest, most unpretentious grass and weeds survive and are the first to grow, suppressing the weakened and almost destroyed beneficial flora. Wherever fires have passed, the former variety of grasses will no longer be found, as more resilient weeds quickly take over the burnt territory.

In addition to the immense damage to biodiversity, fires increase carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Not only dry grass burns, but also dead organic matter accumulated in the soil, consequently increasing carbon dioxide emissions, which exacerbates the so-called greenhouse effect, leading to unfavorable changes and more drastic climate fluctuations.

Grass fires are one of the main sources of fires in forests and peatlands. Even a weak and fleeting fire destroys young plantings created to protect fields from drying out, banks from erosion, and roads from snow and dust drifts. At the site of the arson, the normal life of plants and insects is restored (in the best case) only after 5–6 years, or never.

It should not be forgotten that grass fires lead to the ignition of residential buildings, outbuildings, and even cause human fatalities.