The provinces instructed forest owners to strictly obey regulations on forest fire prevention and control, while developing preventives measures using local resources.

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Relevant authorities in the region have actively worked with forest owners to raise their awareness of forest fire prevention while asking ethnic minority people to take caution when burning land as their slash-and-burn cultivation practice. Localities and forest owners also signed commitments with ethnic minority households living near forests on forest fire prevention and forest protection.

Besides, the localities have set up hundreds of forest protection teams, intensified forces on round-the-clock duty in high-risk areas, build thousands of fire watch towers and hundreds of kilometers of fire prevention belt.

Information and communication work has been strengthened to warn forest fire risks and to effectively implement prevention and control measures against forest fires.

According to the Central Highlands Steering Committee, the region has over 3,354 million hectares of forests and forest land, including 2,253 million hectares of natural forests, and over 313,313 hectares of planted forests.

In 2016, the region recorded 45 forest fires, damaging over 170 hectares of forest. Of the fires, 34 occurred in Lam Dong, burning 118 hectares of forest; and 10 in Dak Lak, damaging 19.7 hectares of forest.

Source: VNA