This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Climate change, war and forest fires in eastern Ukraine
By: []
Date: 2021-09
“After the fire burned down our home, we moved here, where no one’s lived for 30 years,” Olexandr Nilovko, a disabled former police officer, tells me as he lies in bed.
He’s referring to events last September in the area around Luhansk, Ukraine, when forest fires broke out in the war-torn region’s forest, and affected its small villages, including his home of Muratove. In total, the fires killed 17 people and left 600 homes in ruins.
“The smoke was blowing over our garden,” Nilovko continues. “Everyone watched it for two days. Then I remember hearing a crack, I turned my head and a tree was on fire outside my window.”
Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies are still investigating different scenarios of how the fires started, including arson, spontaneous combustion andshelling from the occupied territories, as well as human carelessness.
But behind the tragic statistics and investigation lie the lives of several hundred people living in Muratove. I went to find out how they are coping, and what ecologists think about what happened.
Life after the fires
When we arrive on Muratove’s Lisova Street, nature is starting to come back to life. The grass is turning green underfoot, small purple flowers make their way through last year’s foliage. The river, with water that’s barely ankle-deep, flows slowly through the village in an overgrown ditch.
There are around 160 people like Olexandr Nilovko in Muratove and the neighbouring village of Kapitanove who received compensation for the destruction of their homes.
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