Fighting forest fires in the Kuibyshev Region in 1931-1940: a little-known aspect of the ecological history of the Middle Volga region

The paper deals with the spread of forest fires and measures to combat them in the course of implementing the policy of preserving the forests of the Volga region in the years of the pre-war five-year plans. The paper is written mainly on the basis of archival materials of the Russian State Archive of Economics, the Central State Archive of the Samara Region, and the State Archive of the Ulyanovsk Region, which were first introduced into historical circulation. In the 1930s, large-scale logging was carried out in the Kuibyshev Region in violation of the rules of forestry. One of the problems of forest exploitation was the growth of forest fires, which caused significant economic and environmental damage. The forest industry trust «Sredles» and the Srednevolzhsky Forestry Trust could not significantly change the situation with the fire protection of forests for the better. The most unfavorable years for the forests of the Middle Volga region and the Kuibyshev Region were 1933 and 1938. After the creation of the Srednevolzhsky (Kuibyshev) Forest Protection Department, the effectiveness of fire-fighting measures increased. Fire fighting was carried out by the most modern means at that time. As a result, the annual number of fires decreased. But it was not possible to completely solve the problem of fires in the forests of the Middle Volga during the third five-year plan.