Forest fires in the Middle-Volga region: a forgotten environmental disaster of the Russian civil war

Ecological history has still numerous aspects to research in the forestry history of Russia. The article is the first attempt in Russian historiography to examine the causes, scale and consequences of forest fires raging in the Middle-Volga region in 1920 and 1921. These fires were a natural calamity and ecological disaster of a national scale. The author analyses the critical situation in Russian forestry highlighting the fact that during the Russian Civil War the logging was done with massive rule violations. Trees were cut down along railways and in the proximity of inhabited locations, with the timber harvest many times exceeding annual forest growth. By the end of the Civil War the violations of the logging rules and arsons triggered forest fires, another disaster hitting the Volga region, apart from destruction and famine. Statistical data are used indicating the forest area in the Volga provinces and autonomous republics that were damaged. It is concluded that the factors causing the forest fires were the high amount of logging companies and fire safety violations by people working in the forest. By using the forest fire fighting experience in the Volga region and conducting fire fighting activities organized by the Soviet authorities the state system of forest protection and fire fighting in the 1920s were consolidated.