DakLak (VNA) – The five Central Highlands provinces of Dak Lak, DakNong, Gia Lai, Kon Tum and Lam Dong are actively taking measures on forest fireprevention in dry season.

Theprovinces instructed forest owners to strictly obey regulations on forest fireprevention and control, while developing preventives measures using localresources.

Relevantauthorities in the region have actively worked with forest owners to raise theirawareness of forest fire prevention while asking ethnic minority people to takecaution when burning land as their slash-and-burn cultivation practice. Localitiesand forest owners also signed commitments with ethnic minority householdsliving near forests on forest fire prevention and forest protection.

Besides,the localities have set up hundreds of forest protection teams, intensified forces on round-the-clockduty in high-risk areas, build thousands of fire watch towers and hundreds of kilometres of fireprevention belt.

Informationand communication work has been strengthened to warn forest fire risks and toeffectively implement prevention and control measures against forest fires.

Accordingto the Central Highlands Steering Committee, the region has over 3.354 millionhectares of forests and forest land, including 2,253 million hectares of naturalforests, and over 313,313 hectares of planted forests.

In2016, the region recorded 45 forest fires, damaging over 170 hectares of forest.Of the fires, 34 occurred in Lam Dong, burning 118 hectares of forest; and 10in Dak Lak, damaging 19.7 hectares of forest.-VNA