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RESPONSIBLE FIRE MANAGEMENT
For the 2014-2015 season we implemented a
national Forest Fire Protection Plan, develo-
ped within the framework of the Forestry
Producers Society by technical representati-
ves of the existing forestry companies in the
three major forest regions of the country
(South-east, North and Littoral of the Uru-
guay River), in which UPM Forestal Oriental
played an active role.
Based on our experience in previous
years, where the system was used exclusively
in the south-east of the country, we wor-
ked to cover an effective forested area of
720,000 ha. This represents approximately
90% of the total forest plantations in the
country.
The main objective of the system has been
to reduce the incidence and consequences of
forest fires through the early detection of
outbreaks and rapid, efficient and coordinated
action to combat fires.
Three Operational Bases were therefore
set up in the cities of Treinta y Tres, Guichón
and Tacuarembó. Each of these bases has a
helicopter capable of carrying a fully equip-
ped combat team with 6 fire-fighters and a
helibucket with a discharge capacity of 800
litres.
The Plan was developed jointly with a
system of watchtowers strategically placed in
areas where there is a greater concentration of
forests and aircraft for the detection of fire
outbreaks.
The aircraft fly over the forested areas,
following the instructions received by an
Operations Base that centralises all informa-
tion and coordinates the various resources of
the three regions. The flights carried out by
the aircraft are determined by the IRIF (Fo-
rest Fire Risk Index), which is determined
according to the information received and
processed by the Operations Base.
The system is complemented by preventi-
ve actions such as maintenance tasks in the
forests and fire buffer areas, monitoring and
educational campaigns and radio broadcas-
ting. With regard to radio broadcasting this
year
we managed to run a single Fire Preven-
tion Radio Campaign between all of the fo-
restry companies in the country, always
within the framework of the SPF and broad-
cast by radio stations across the country.
This project allowed the new UPM Fores-
tal Oriental system to go from covering
50,000 hectares to almost 200,000 ha.
TRAINING
Training courses were held
on preventing and fighting
forest fires, as well as a cour-
se on fire extinguishers. In
both cases, the participants
were the employees of UPM
Forestal Oriental employees
and Service Providers.
Fire extinguishers:
90 participants
Forest fires:
220 participants
At UPM, we work
on the basis that
all accidents are
preventable. We are
focused on the pursuit
of continuous safety
improvements.
This has allowed
significant reduction in
accident rates.
GERARDO GALIMBERTI
Security Manager