Drought in Poland. It was not even so bad on the Biebrza during a historic fire

On Sunday, a fire broke out in the Biebrza National Park. The fire covered 90 hectares of reeds, and its mastery lasted several hours. The fire was most likely to start as a result of human action, and its spread was facilitated by the extremely dry conditions in the park.

Read more: Fire in the Biebrza National Park

In an interview with TVN24, Andrzej Zambrzycki from the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Goniądz said that the drought is so powerful that the usually impassable areas of Biebrza backwaters can be entered with a dry foot. Such bad conditions were not recorded even in April 2020, when the largest fire in the history of the Biebrza National Park broke out.

– When there was a fire, it was impossible to drive at this place, because there was water, mud – he said, adding that usually similar conditions prevail only in the summer.

Justyna Pińkowska from the Biebrza National Park in an interview with TVN24 explained that in places the water level in Biebrza is more than a meter lower than in previous years.

“There is no backwaters even at the mouth of the Narew to Biebrza, the river is all the time in the trough,” she said.

The expert explained that at the turn of March and April backwaters should occur in the Biebrza Valley, meadows should be flooded, and roadside ditches – full of water. Such dry conditions can cause a lot of fauna problems. The nests founded by breeding birds on dried soil will be less protected against predators, because the backwaters are a natural defense line.

– Some birds may not be breeding at all – explained Pińkowska.

She added that it is particularly dangerous for rare, protected species that require specific environmental conditions, for exampleAcrocephalus paludicola) or a great kulik (Nutenius Arquata).