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“About 20 thousand people were damaged in the forests. cubic meters of wood, that is, about 40 thousand trees. For a clearer picture, it would be about 100 hectares of clearcutting, about 100 football stadiums. Initially, our foresters helped the energy workers to find broken cables, the elderly to clear roads to remote villages. Now the foresters will eliminate the effects of snow in the forests so that the trees felled in spring do not become sources of pests, “said Valdas Kaubre, director of the State Forestry Company.
The greatest damage was reported by foresters in the regional subdivisions of Panevėžys, Šalčininkai, Dubrava, Kretinga, Nemenčinė, Varėna and Trakai, where some 30,000 trees were felled. hectares.
The difficult situation in the forests was caused by the fact that wet and heavy snow fell, which was not blown by the wind from the branches of the trees, so when it accumulated, the branches or even all the trees would break. It was especially dangerous to walk through the pine forests, which are popular with many people: the fragile branches of the pine trees make the tops of umbrellas more difficult to bear the snow. It is these trees, according to foresters, and the ones that break the most. Birch, birch, fir and other weaker and bent trees. The younger birch trees suffered when the weight of the snow hit the ground; they probably couldn’t recover.
After a heavy snowfall, foresters first rushed to help the energy workers: some helped drive up to damaged power lines, others helped the elderly clear the roads in isolated, remote, snow-covered villages. Using powerful techniques, the roads covered with roads in the forest have also been cleared. Trees are cut into assortments: logs or firewood, collected. Additional forces are hired to manage leaning and dangerous trees near houses; trees are managed by cutting them from special towers.
As Vigantas Kraujalis, head of the Exploitation Department of the State Forestry Company, recalls, we had a similar winter only in 2009, so the raging snow caused anxiety and inconvenience to both foresters and residents.
According to V. Kraujalis, managing snowfall is complicated and difficult, dangerous and time-consuming work. “The wind gates are much easier to fix, and when driving the snow gates, in case of a lot of snow, you have to go up to each tree, cut it down, fix the branches that are going to be cut, and then fix the road. Our The team can travel in a snowy forest, but it is not possible to approach everywhere, in some places only an accessible person can work ”, says the specialist.
The most important thing is to fix the snow barrier and snow gate as soon as possible so that pests do not appear on the broken trees moved. Weakened trees are attacked by stem pests – bark beetles, and a new generation is attacking healthy trees.
Foresters also remember the storm “Laura” that struck last March, which caused much more damage. This time more than 205 thousand. m3 of broken stands transferred in a little more than 2.5 thousand. ha of forest area. This is almost as much as the total area of the cities of Kaunas and Šiauliai. Trees with a shallow root system were the most affected, that is, firs, as well as trees with a dense and massive crown. Most trees are moved to more humid places, near holes and power lines.
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