Czech Switzerland 2 years after the fire

We are standing on a hill between Pravčická dol and the well-known Pravčická gate, from where there is a good view of the symbol of the national park. Even before the fire, this was not the case, the rock formation was lost behind tall trees, especially spruce monoculture. It suffered from bark beetles and drought until it definitively succumbed to a big fire that broke out here on July 24, 2022.

“Two years ago, we would have been standing here in a completely blackened area with a lot of burnt wood, the surface would have been completely black, there would have been practically no vegetation,” says Tomáš Salov, a spokesman for the park administration, who is our guide today. “Now we see how the whole location has changed, we see around us a large number of invasive pioneer trees,” he shows us.

They are mainly dominated by the birch, which has flooded almost the entire free area and in some places it already reaches a meter and a half high.

“Birch is to some extent a specialist in such locations. It is very resistant, capable of withstanding extreme conditions, it transports nutrients from the deeper layers of the soil to the surface, and when it grows, it creates the basic shading of the ground cover and creates the conditions for other trees of the later forest to take hold here,” explains Salov.

Just a short distance from where we are standing, the entire spectrum of a waking forest is taking shape on a small area as a prime example – in addition to the birch, poplar aspen grows here among the grass and herbs, and tiny pines and spruce live next to it.

In places where the stands were “closer to nature”, fire destruction was less pronounced, areas of clubbing young trees alternated with original islands of beech, oak and pine trees.

“The renewing power of nature is fascinating. Such a level of afforestation would not be able to be realized by human power,” the spokesperson is convinced. “I dare say that today we are surrounded by the youngest naturally formed forest in the Czech Republic,” he says.

They can easily imagine how the affected locations will look in ten or more years – they can compare, for example, with the area on Jetřichovick, where almost twenty hectares burned in 2006. Today, a colorful mixed forest with a natural composition of the vegetation grows there. They expect that here as well.

Most of the charred tree stumps are left in place by the park administration. “The first argument for not cleaning the wood is that we would destroy the area with technology and thus destroy the rejuvenation, that is undesirable. Second, dead wood has the function of nutrients for the new forest. And until this decay process is complete, the dead trunks provide at least basic shading on the surface,” enumerates our guide.

“You can see that nature has known fire for hundreds of thousands of years and can deal with such a situation very well. It is much more difficult to deal with situations caused by man, for example by intensive mining in some places and moving there with equipment, forest restoration is slower there,” explains Salov.

According to him, the animals also coped with the situation quite successfully. For example, deer or roe deer returned to the burned areas very soon after the fire, and the park also has evidence of the movement of animals such as wolves.

“For amphibians, we have recorded a small decrease in the population of about twenty percent year-on-year,” the spokesperson calculates. According to him, there are also reptiles – snakes and vipers, and birds, for example the wood lark.

The first human visitors began to return to the park two months after the fire was extinguished. “Currently, the attendance is not as intense as it was in the extreme years of 2018 and 2019, but it is still possible to say that we are in a very visited location,” the spokesperson summarizes.

Tourism is also returning to the former dormitories in the most affected region of Hřensk. “When there are sunny days and especially on weekends, Hřensko is bursting at the seams,” commented the mayor of the village Kateřina Horáková (n.) recently for Fairpress.

Mrs. Jana from Mělník, for example, went on a trip here with her husband five years after she was last here. “It’s a big change, everything was overgrown with trees, the Pravčická Gate was not visible at all. Compared to this year, it is a disaster. But I think that nature will fight with it and will handle everything,” believes the tourist who went on a hike from Mezní Louka.

The group from Slovak Trnava came to see the national park for the first time, they spent several days here and did not know much about the fire. “We were very surprised at how large an area was affected. On the one hand, there are nice views, on the other hand, it’s a bit sad, but the forest is being restored, so we had a nice experience,” Lucia and Dominik evaluate.

Sokolí hnízdo or Pravčická brána still remains the biggest magnet for tourists, they can reach it from Hřensk and from Mezní Louka. However, there are still areas where entry is not allowed for safety reasons, mainly due to the risk of falling trees.

“Edmund’s gorge and Gabriel’s trail remain closed to visitors to the Hřensko area. These are two roads that used to be very popular, and their restoration is expected to take several years,” informs Salov.

For new arrivals, the so-called visitor traffic light. “Regulates visitor options depending on the issued fire risk warning. When there is an increased risk of fire, visitors are not allowed in the forests at night between 10 pm and 6 am. And when there is a very high fire risk warning, in addition to this measure, visitors are only allowed to move along marked tourist routes,” explains the spokesperson.

To prevent the recurrence of a large fire, there are new sources and reservoirs for water for quick extinguishing, which have increased in the country. Field personnel are equipped with firefighting equipment to be able to react immediately, the administration also purchased a drone with a thermal camera and increased the number of guards checking compliance with the rules. “Fire prevention became one of the priorities of the national park administration after the fire,” confirms Salov.

“Unfortunately, we continue to encounter rare cases of people in the park, for example, setting off fireworks or making a fire in it. We try to punish it as strictly as possible. Last year, for example, one such incident resulted in a fine of up to eighty thousand,” he recalls.