Wildfires in Kazakhstan unveil a civil defense problem
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.” - Henry Adams.
Wildfire in the Semey?Ormany State Forest Natural Reserve revealed a problem of how legal overlaps prevent the Government of Kazakhstan from efficiently providing safety of its citizens and their property.
Under the 2003 Forestry Code the State Forest Fund (30,5 million hectares or 11,2% of Kazakhstan) belongs to its people. And state exercises the right of ownership on behalf of its people.
The Forestry and Wildlife Committee (FWC) of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources supervises 24.4% (7,4 million hectares) of the State Forest Fund, including the Semey Ormany Reserve, and regional Governor offices (Oblast Akims) oversee 74.9%.
In 2012, President Nazarbayev's Administration adopted "Kazakhstan 2050" Strategy which outlined plan for Kazakhstan to join a group of 30 most developed countries in the world by 2050.
But it frightens to see how developed Canada fights forest fires on larger territories without casualties, while complacency in Kazakhstan might leave the country without forests in the next 30 years.
Irresponsible response
On June 8th at 14.46 the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) released initial information about the spread of fire across 0.3 hectares in Semey Ormany Reserve. At 16.32 the FWC informed of 100 hectares and at 21.55 the MES confirmed over 2000 hectares. Yet, at 23.05 Abai region's Governor office mentioned only 20 hectares.
On June 9th at 00.00 Nurbol Nursagatov, Mayor of Semey city, declared a state of local emergency in the capital of Abai region.
At 13.30 the MES confirmed the spread over 30,000 hectares (JSC "Kazakhstan Gharys Sapary" referred to 30,000 hectares by the morning on June 9th).
The same day President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered Minister for Emergency Situations to promptly deploy to Abai region and lead the emergency response to a natural disaster. Additionally, he instructed the Government to use all available resources for this cause.
On June 10th, the Governor office and MES confirmed that fire spread across 60,000 hectares (area of Almaty city is 68,300 hectares), but situation was under control.
Later, President fired former Minister of Emergency Situations Yuri Ilyin and appointed Sarym Shariphanov as his replacement. He also reprimanded Nurlan Urankhaev, Governor of Abai region.
On June 11th, President canceled his foreign visit to Vietnam and personally attended crisis in Abai region where earlier 14 first responders were confirmed dead (later death toll rose to 15 people, adding one civilian casualty).
At the Operation Center President said, “fires happen all over the world, but proper measures are being taken. Here, the Minister has not come, region's Governor took too long to decide to come, instead he sent his deputies. What kind of attitude is that? Relevant question is why assessment of fire was wrong?”
Failed assessment and delayed reaction
Osken Toyshibekov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of JSC "Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary", that provides satellite images to the government agencies confirmed that "first thermal points of possible outbreak appeared on June 8th at 11.23 and information was published on web-service at 13.20 and made available to both MES and FWC.
On June 9th, Dmitryi Garikov, Deputy Governor of Abai region, clarified that the initial signal was received on June 8th at 12.03 and first responders were 11 km away from the epicenter.
Governor office could receive this information from local MES or FWC units because it depends on their resources. This confirms that the central government agencies were aware of wildfire at least 40 minutes after the outbreak.
The 2GIS navigation service indicates that the distance of 11 kilometers could be travelled in 19 minutes by truck and approximately 30-40 minutes with account for a difficult terrain (by 12.30 - 12.40). Helicopter or drones are capable of covering this distance even faster. Local forces also could request satellite imagery from the MES.
According to Dmitryi Garikov, when first responders arrived at the scene fire covered 20 hectares and just in two hours (by 14.40 - 15.00) it spread over 200 hectares. Despite this, by 14.46 MES officially confirmed only 0.3 hectares.
Such actions by the Ministry officials could only be explained if local forces were not equipped or trained to properly assess current and potential risks.
Practice before the D-Day
Back in the afternoon of May 22, a wildfire passed from the Russian territory to Semey Ormany Reserve and spread over 50-70 hectares. Local emergency services apparently stopped it the next day, however, later it reemerged.
Eventually, the Task Force was expanded to more than 850 personnel, 200 vehicles, 1 fire train and 10 helicopters to fight fire across 3,500 hectares.
On May 25, three days after initial signal and when fire expansion was already stopped Governor declared a state of emergency in one district which he announced during his report to Prime-Minister (information about fully stopping fire was never announced or published).
With this recent experience of fighting wildfire in the Semey Ormany Reserve, government agencies failed to do the same job just 14 days later with initial outbreak across 0,3-20 hectares.
When fire covered 2000 hectares the emergency response involved 167 personnel, 47 vehicles and 3 helicopters. Even the next day with fire across 30,000 hectares Task Force accounted only for 662 personnel, 177 vehicles and 6 helicopters.
By 22.00 on June 8th, with available data MES was able to predict that a growth rate of 257 hectares per hour would spread fire across 3500 hectares around 04.00 on June 9th (in reality by 23.00 on June 8th). At this point, it would need at least 850 personnel, 200 vehicles, 1 fire train and 10 helicopters.
Therefore, initially deployed Task Force only had a chance to stop fire before 22.00 on June 8th and past that point they needed a small army. For this reason, declaration of a state of emergency was crucial in the first 7-9 hours.
Local or regional disaster
On June 9th at 00.00, Mayor of Semey declared a local state of emergency in region's capital (21,000 hectares).
This seems as an inadequate measure on behalf of the Governor office because projection would suggest at the moment that fire already spread across 2500 hectares (in reality around 5600 hectares) and it could spill in any direction, considering area of Semey Ormany Reserve is 654,179 hectares (almost ten Almaty cities).
Article 49 of the 2014 Civil Protection Act regulates the government mechanism for response to natural and man-made disasters and as an initial step it requires to analyze and determine the scale of emergency.
The 1993 Administrative and Territorial Structure Act states that "the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan is divided into two main categories - region (oblast/region, district and rural district) and settlement (city/town/locality).
The 2014 Prime-Minister's Decree clarifies that regional disaster covers a territory of at least three districts of one region or territories in two regions and one of the following consequences could arise: 1) death of more than 50 people, but not more than 200 people; 2) violation of living conditions of over 500 people, but not more than 1500 people (more than 3000 people live in evacuated Ozersky rural district).
The initial thermal spread on June 8th and potential projections in a forest the size of two and a half Luxembourgs (258,600 hectares) should have indicated that fire could potentially reach several settlements and districts with severe wind. Despite available actionable information the scale of emergency was assessed improperly and region wide state of emergency was never declared.
Yuzan Tanirbergenov, a veteran of the forest industry, believes that mostly large fires spread due to lack of coordination between the forestry enterprises and emergency services. Usually, an emergency is declared when a forest fire spreads across 25 hectares or more".
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Action plan for regional disasters
In 2017, Prime Minister in support of the Civil Protection Act approved an action plan for emergencies of a regional scale which states that in 30 minutes after receiving initial signal the Ministries of Emergency Situations, Internal Affairs, Defense and region's Governor office begin rescue and evacuation operations.
At the same time, Minister of Emergency Situations informs the President's Administration, Prime Minister's Office, Security Council and other government agencies about the emergency.
In 60 minutes after the initial signal Minister of Emergency Situations and region's Governor provide Prime Minister with a draft declaration of a regional state of emergency and a candidate to assign as a head of emergency response (usually Minister or Deputy Minister) that organizes, coordinates and manages rescue and emergency operations.
These initial steps do not involve Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (MENR), even though almost 25% of the State Forest Fund are under its direct supervision with its own State Forest Guard force.
And in case of the Semey Ormany wildfire, first responders were under command of the MENR and not MES, and legislation should have accounted for such situations.
Role of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources
On May 16, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Zulfiya Suleimenova reported to Prime-Minister that her Agency was ready for the season of high wildfire risk.
"In 2022, 801 cases of fire occurred on the territory of the State Forest Fund across 1 million hectares, including 49,900 hectares covered with forest. One of the main reasons for large forest fires is poor equipment of the forest guards. Forest services of Governor offices are equipped at 69% availability level and the Ministry's forces at 71%," - she added.
Minister also stated that, "the Agency adopted a joint action plan with the MES to reduce the risks of forest and steppe fires in 2023 and signed a Procedural Agreement for engaging the State Fire Service (under MES) to fight wildfires at the State Forest Fund".
Signing an agreement and additional action plan indicates that the existing protocols were not efficient and the government organizations understood that. The Ministries were aware of poor equipment of its own forces and the regional administrations.
Minister Suleimenova shed tears when President met with the families of first responders who died due to a poor judgement of their superiors. But emotions do not solve problems that everyone knew about.
Coordination and legal collisions
Wildfire in Semey Ormany Reserve surfaced legal overlaps/collisions between three government structures that are obligated to coordinate each other, instead of solving a mutual problem.
The Civil Protection Act, Forestry Code, government agencies' internal documents, interagency agreements and action plans are not working in synergy. This establishes inefficient overlapping system when different government organizations have duplicate roles and responsibilities.
For this reason, Head of State had to intervene and personally initiate the regional action plan overstepping Prime-Minister's declaration of state of emergency because protocols described in the Civil Protection Act and other relevant legislation have failed.
In ideal world, President must have fired both heads of MES and MENR and Governor of Abai region. If this does not happen after the criminal investigation, then it will raise more "questions why".
Just last year similar size wildfire happened in Kostanay region (43,000 hectares), and as President said, "nobody learned any lessons from that".
Unlearned lessons by a Listening State
This Article is not aiming to dig into the corruption schemes around the State Forest Fund, Civil Protection Act and involved government organizations.
But considering President's advise about lessons of the past, one should look back two years after enacting the Civil Protection Act in 2016 when Pavel Kazantsev, a member of Parliament, stated that "legislation on rescue operations, in particular the Civil Protection Act, is inconsistent".
The issue then involved the Professional Paramilitary Emergency Rescue Service under the Committee for Industrial Development and Safety of the Ministry of Investment and Development which attempted to monopolize the rescue operations business using legal status of a state enterprise.
It seems that seven years after revelations by Pavel Kazantsev, the Civil Protection Act and other emergency protocols are still "broken laws".
According to Zhandos Umiraliyev, Deputy Prosecutor General, criminal investigation into current wildfire is considering three possible causes: 1) arson with the aim of further selling forest fund to third parties; 2) negligence of emergency services; and 3) natural cause".
And it is very important to note that corruption, criminal reasons and negligence are the main leads in current investigation. Prosecutors are most probably studying possible connection between the wildfire and sentencing on May 29 of three former senior managers of the Semey Ormany Reserve to 10 years each for illegally issuing permits for deforestation and other unlawful activities.
Financing civil defense is not an easy business
Comprehensive plan of priority measures for civil protection in 2023-2027 allocates 1.4 trillion tenge (3.13 billion USD) which is a good investment as long as it is properly appropriated.
A member of the Anti-Corruption Agency's Public Council and activist Didar Smagulov confirmed that many forestry workers who died in fire did not have necessary equipment. However, since 2016 more than 5.3 billion tenge (11,8 million USD) were allocated for the needs of the Semey Ormany Reserve.
Aizhan Skakova, the ecologist and expert of the Mazhilis (Lower Chamber) of Parliament, noted that "Kazakhstan has everything for a correct assessment and timely response to emergencies. The Semey Ormany Reserve was fairly well equipped with the Fire Watch multi-level fire-fighting system, forest patrol vehicles for any terrain, video cameras and sensors that detect smoke 15 km away. But when fire broke out, nothing worked. The patrol car allegedly was stuck in the sand".
"Preliminary investigation shows that first responders of the Novoshulbinsk branch of Semey Ormany (14 died) did not even have uniforms, masks and special gear. They decided not to wait for help and deployed on their own," - she continued.
It should be clear for everyone that main victim in this whole situation are the citizens (taxpayers) of Kazakhstan who pay for more than 30 years for government's inability to organize itself, fight corruption, provide adequate emergency response to disasters or even prevent water shortages in the capital and rest of the country.
Enemy at the gate
If the Civil Protection Act does not work in routine situations, then decision makers should consider scenarios when President will not be able to manually handle everything and babysit "paper" ministers.
In cases like January 2022, for example, if laws worked, Kazakhstan would not need an assistance from the "bear". And in situations like that ministers must show their competence and decisiveness, rather than emotions and regrets.
Hypothetically, if an "unspecified" enemy suddenly decided to invade Kazakhstan to annex parts of the country, then ministers and "akims" would have to organize civil defense, evacuation and other complex operations.
Considering the enemy is constantly assessing Kazakhstan's combat readiness, he might as diversion tactics use wildfires in several regions - e.g. Northern, Eastern and Western Kazakhstan.
Ministry of Emergency Situations will have to respond to a global scale wildfire on its own because the Ministries of Defense, Internal Affairs and special Agencies (including Border Guard) will be busy defending vast territories against a technologically superior opponent.
According to 2022 census, government agencies will have to ensure immediate safety of almost 10 million people (Northern regions and Astana - 4,148,221, Western regions - 2,990,484 and Eastern and Central regions - 2,689,760).
Ukraine needed eight years to prepare for a full-scale Russian invasion in order to successfully stand its ground in Kiev and begin effective counteroffensive after losing Crimea and Eastern parts in 2014.
In Kazakhstan lawmakers timely passed the Civil Protection Act in 2014 which regulates protocols for civil defense in time of peace and war. But it seems that the law serves wrong interests, rather than mobilizing government resources to protect its citizens.