Three of the largest forest fires in Sweden in the last ten years are judged to be caused by work on forest machines. The largest, the fire in Västmanland in 2014, covered 14,000 hectares. This has resulted in the forest industry as a whole working actively to prevent fires from arising from forestry.

- Often we remove the straps, slides and chains on the machines. We make sure that the contractors have extra fire protection equipment with them, access to extra water and then we have fire guards who follow the work during the day and also stay after the work is done, says Hanna Wickberg, production manager at Moelven forest in Värmland.

Felling is stopped

If the fire risk is extremely high, felling is often stopped completely. But despite this, forestry causes a significant number of forest fires each year.

According to a report from SLU, the Swedish University of Agriculture, the industry accounts for 2.2 per cent of the forest fires that rescue services need to escape. But the rescue service in Karlstad believes that the industry is responsible for more fires than that.

- There are estimates that between five and ten percent of forest fires are caused by forest machines, says Björn Johansson, fire engineer at the rescue service in Karlstad.

As much as 40 per cent of the total burned forest area is the result of fires started in connection with work with forest machines. This is stated in SLU's report, Forest fires caused by forest machines, from 2018.

In the clip above, Moelven's forest production manager tells about what can cause fires in connection with work in the forest.