Prevention of Wildfires
A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.
The World Assembly,
Rejoicing that many nations include not only urban areas and farmland but also wide expanses of natural or at least semi-natural habitats too,
Realising that although most nations probably have fairly adequate measures in place for controlling fires in urban areas some might not yet have extended those systems to cover their more rural areas effectively too, and that the best ways for managing fires in rural areas — especially in wilderness — may differ from those useful at more urban sites anyway,
Aware that wide areas of vegetation (especially those of woodland, such as may be called ‘forests’) are often likely to contain large amounts of combustible material, leading to serious risks that any fires started there might spread uncontrollably and cause significant damage,
Wise to the fact that natural fire can be an integral and even important factor in some ecosystems, and that even in ‘wild’ areas where that is not the case carrying out controlled burns of limited extent to reduce potential fuel levels for unplanned fires may be a better policy than simply trying to prevent all fires there altogether,
Regarding this as an ‘international’ enough topic for WA legislation because even when a fire itself does not cross international borders the smoke-clouds from it may do so, maybeso with seriously harmful results, as well as for the potential effects on global environments and endangered species;
Hereby,
1). Instructs all member nations to:
i/ Have and enforce, across all of their territory, laws against both reckless fire-starting and the deliberate starting of inadequately controllable fires;
ii/ Have suitable plans, with the necessary personnel and equipment for those, in place for managing fires everywhere within their borders, to the best extent practical within reason;
iii/ Ensure that the relevant people in any other nations likely to be significantly affected are given reasonable notice of planned fires and, as far as is practical within reason, arrange those fires for mutually agreed dates;
iv/ Ensure that the relevant people in any other nations likely to be significantly affected are also notified of any unplanned fires that are identified;
v/ Refrain from the use of uncontrolled fire as a weapon or tool of war in wilderness and semi-wilderness areas, and in any other places from which the fires would be likely to spread into such areas.
2). Encourages member nations to:
i/ Include the safe handling of Fire at a basic level in their educational syllabuses;
ii/ Coordinate plans for controlling fire in border areas with relevant neighbours;
iii/ Cross-train suitable units and individual volunteers from their armed forces in fire-fighting, and position suitable equipment ready for their use, so that when not actually needed for more martial duties they can assist in this work; and deploy other units with relevant skills and equipment to assist in fire-management efforts as appropriate.
3). Instructs the WA Disaster Board to study and to distribute as appropriate information about fire hazards and fire-control methods; urges member nations to share all relevant data that they possess with the WADB; and offers this service to any non-WA nations that are interested (and are willing to pay reasonable fees, share their relevant date with the WADB, and meet clause #1’s terms to the same extent that would be necessary if they were WA members) too.
