Forest-steppe fires as moving disasters in the Mongolia-Russian borderland

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of Northeast Asia.

Table 1. Natural disasters of each season.

Season	Name	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Winter
	periods	middle of February – middle of May	middle of May – middle of August	middle of August – middle of November	middle of November – middle of February
Climate*	Temperature (°C)	−28.3 ~ 32.3	−7/3 ~ 36.9	−31/5 ~ 27.3	−33.8 ~ 2.7
	Precipitation	little	more	little	little
Disasters	Earthquake	●	●	●	●
	Forest-steppe fire	●		●
	Infectious disease	●	●	●
	Snow and sand storm	●
	Zud	●			●
	Flood and water disaster		●	●
	Drought		●	●
	Desertification	●	●	●	●

*About temperature, we show the minimum and maximum temperature of each month during 2015–2018. For precipitation, multiyear average precipitation calculated in 2015 ranges from 112.4 (Dornogovi province) to 359.2 (Orhon province) (National Statistics Office of Mongolia). “More” of Table 1 means most precipitation is given as rain in summer.

Figure 2. Number of forest-steppe fires and years.

Source: Made by authors, source by NSOM

Table 2. Fire frequency and borders.

	Number of provinces	Number of fires	Average fire frequency per province
Bordering with only Russia	6	112	18.7
Bordering with both Russia and China	2	26	13.0
bordering with only China	6	16	2.7
without foreign border	8	85	10.6
Total	22	239	10.9

Note: Authors made this table based on NSOM data, FOREST FIRES, by duplicated number, by national, region, aimag and capital city, by year.

Table 3. Fires and their characteristics in Bayan-Uul district 2010–2016.

	Start date			Origin		Burned forest (ha)	Burned pasture (ha)	Direct cost (1000 MNT)
No	Year	Date	Duration (day)	Origin in district (bag NO.)	External origin (in case of transboundary fire)
1	2010	5/1	1	6		0	238	92
2	2010	10/30	1	3		0	1,302	119
3	2011	4/11	1	6		0	45	57
4	2011	5/13	5	1	Bayandun district	0	31,320	1,303
5	2011	6/12	1	3		0	7,675	223
6	2011	6/20	1	6		0	750	29
7	2011	6/24	5	3	Hentii province	0	440	1,237
8	2011	10/28	2	2		1,158	9,826	567
9	2012	3/20	10	2		29	4,036	983
10	2012	3/26	2	3		0	1,148	591
11	2012	4/7	3	1		5,049	24,647	2,949
12	2012	4/10	2	2		800	2,883	587
13	2012	4/18	2	2		2,568	18,038	982
14	2014	4/13	3	2		257	39,043	1,767
15	2015	4/13	18	6	Russia	78,999	160,411	18,733
16	2015	4/20	11	6	Russia	30,394	43,459	16,010
17	2015	10/18	1	3	Hentii province	0	2,516	492
18	2015	10/20	1	6		0	18	17
19	2016	3/19	1	6		0	42	16
20	2016	4/10	1	3		0	3	16
21	2016	4/20	1	1	Bvayandun district	0	0	2,092
22	2016	5/13	n.d.	3	Hentii province	0	817	534
23	2016	5/24	3	6	Russia	2,239	4,737	1,519
24	2016	6/7	3	4		552	1,166	1,686
25	2016	6/30	3	6		13,667	1,881	3,780
Total			82	-		135,712	356,441	56,381

Source: Compiled from “Bayan-Uul fire loss report, 2010–2016” prepared by environmental inspector Ts.Oyunchimeg.

* Direct cost includes communication costs such as telecommunication.

**1 USD = 1984 MNT (Mongol Tugrug) on April 13 2015 by Bank of Mongolia.

For confirmation, here is PNG file of Table 3

Figure 3. Map of Bayan-Uul district.

Note: *The star represents the district center, the large circles are bag centers, and the small circles are herders’ campsites at that time. **The fire route is indicated by the arrow

Photo 1. Cow covered in ash after the fire.

Table 4. Fire loss in Bayan-Uul district by Fire-1.

Item	Damage	Amount	Ratio(%)
Pasture	loss	64 herder households	14.3
Livestock shelter*	loss	35 herder households	7.8
Hay	loss	105 tons	n.d.
Livestock	died**	500 heads	0.6
	burned	57 heads	0.1
Ger	loss	4	n.d.
Motorcycle	loss	2	n.d.

Source: Bayan-Uul district government report on wildfire damage, Bayan-Uul sumyn tuimeriin hohirlyn akt N1. 2015.05.19.

*Winter shelters mainly

** A total of 500 heads of cattle, including sheep and goats, died, but most horses survived.

***Ratio means damaged households per total households of the district or damaged livestock heads per total heads. Shown up to one decimal place.

Table 5. Firefighting-related expenses and financing.

	Item of expenditure	Price (1000MNT)*	Price (USD)
Direct expenses	Fuel	28,620	14,425
	Food and others	5,280	2,661
	Total	33,900	17,087
Financing	District government	2,500	1,260
	Prefecture government	7,000	3,528
	Loan	24,410	12,303
	Total	33,910	17,092

Photo 2. Winter shelter dung still burning.

Photo 3. Road as a firebreak.

Photo 4. Tractor cultivation, fire prevention zone.

Photo 5. Log barrier.

Photo 6. Yargui (Pulsatilla flavescens) bloom after a month of the raging fire on the steppe.