Certain actions carried out in wooded areas may sometimes seem harmless, but can have serious consequences.
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Human activity plays a role in triggering 80% of forest fires, according to the Society for the Protection of Forests Against Fire (SOPFEU).
This is why the organization is launching a new awareness campaign on Monday, the most important in terms of forest fire prevention ever carried out in Quebec.
This campaign particularly targets three behaviors which are the main causes of fires.
Here are the negligent actions to avoid in order to prevent the worst:
– Throw cigarette butts on the ground. This simple action is responsible, on average, for 80 fires per year.
– Burn waste. A simple moment of inattention can quickly cause a loss of control. On average, 75 fires per year are caused by burning waste.
– Improperly putting out a campfire. While it is fun to spend an evening around the fire, you need to make sure that it is properly extinguished before leaving it unattended. Each year, on average, 60 forest fires are caused by poorly extinguished campfires.
SOPFEU’s prevention and communications coordinator, Stéphane Caron, warns that a trivial situation can quickly degenerate.
“People think it’s no big deal. People are surprised to see how quickly the fire went away,” he said in an interview with Salut Bonjour.
He gives the example of Oka National Park, in the Laurentians, where two hectares of forest were burned on March 30, because of a cigarette butt thrown on the ground.
Watch the full interview in the video above.
