"We fear most precipitation in the end of the week, were they to fall on the frozen, cold surface. The thickness of sleet layer would increase," says Damjan Oražem, the acting director of the Slovenian Forest Institute.

Approximately 40 percent of Slovenian forests are damaged, covering the surface of almost half a million hectares. Although it is still difficult to speak of numbers, the damage in forests amounts to several tens of millions. In 1980 the damage in Brkini occurred. The fallen wood mass was six times smaller, yet 400 woodcutters needed five years to deal with the consequences. We asked the acting director of the Slovenian Forest Institute Damjan Oražem how many years it would take to remove the consequences of the biggest natural disaster.

Damjan Oražem, what are the present conditions in the forests?
We keep in contact with our colleagues in the field, if the field permits it. In these conditions the safety is our priority. Therefore we are preparing only very rough estimates from safe distances, while the colleagues also help the teams in the field, which are concentrating on improving the conditions for the inhabitants, while the forests have to wait.

In the present weather conditions the formation of additional sleet is still possible, and on Tuesday a small quantity of precipitation is expected. On Wednesday it should get warmer. Considering the quantity of ice, some might still remain. We fear most the precipitation in the end of the week, as were they to fall on the frozen, cold surface, the thickness of the sleet layer would increase. Wind presents another danger: if the wind started blowing through frozen forests, we would face a domino effect: trees would start falling one after another.

Where is the situation the worst?
The most affected are the areas in the municipalities of Pivka, Postojna, Logatec, Vrhnika, Idrija, and the Northern Primorska. Yet the damage spread through almost 40 percent of the Slovenian forests, on the area of approximately half a million hectares.

What are your plans for rehabilitation of damages, and what will your approach be?
No service is dimensioned adequately for the conditions we have witnessed for last couple of days. We will prepare a rehabilitation plan which will include damage estimation. We must produce it within two months, and we hope to succeed to meet the deadline, but for now we will wait. We are working on eliminating the consequences which are of critical importance for the inhabitants, and for the traffic. Our employees are also working shoulder to shoulder with fire departments, and civil defence.

The forestry work will actually start only when sleet disappears from the trees, although the danger won't be over even then. An enormous number of broken branches and broken tree-tops will still remain in tree crowns. Until the wind blows through the forests and most of them fall on the ground, the forests won't be safe. And even after that there will be plenty of unstable trees – broken, or leaning on other trees ... Any activity in the damaged forests will remain dangerous also in future.

Can we say that the elimination of damage will be completed by the end of March?
Well, perhaps. The data on previous larger damages in Slovenian forests show that the worst damage by sleet in combination with heavy snow occurred in winter of 1996-97. 900.000 cubic metres of wood were broken, which is four times less than now, and eight percent of the surface covered by Slovenian forests were damaged, i.d. 82,000 hectares. At that time sleet was playing havoc with trees from December 24, 1996 till the end of January 1997.

If you had to give an estimate of the damage in money, what would it be?
It is very difficult to speak in numbers, but we should be speaking in tens of millions. It is too soon for an estimation. The damage will be such that we will be entitled to ask for EU help. Speaking of rehabilitation I would like to add that the thickness of sleet layer in Brkini in November 1980 was up to seven centimetres, and the damage occurred on 13,000 hectares. At that time 400 professional tree-cutters from all the Slovenian forest companies needed five years to eliminate the damage. At that time the mass of the fallen trees amounted to 674,000 cubic metres. The quantity of the wood mass presently on the forest ground is six times bigger.

We are talking about a longterm rehabilitation of consequences. What does it mean for the nature, and what for people?
The nature follows its own rhythm. Sleet occurs in cycles, and often – sometimes with catastrophic, sometimes with hardly any consequences. The nature takes care of the rehabilitation. When compared to a human lifetime, the natural rehabilitation seems very long, while when considered from nature's point of view not so long at all. The physical elimination of damage will take a couple of years, and the wood will regenerate in 20, 25, 30 years, which is a long time as far as people are concerned. But besides direct damage also indirect damage presents a problem. The direct damage occurs because the trees are cut too soon, or are broken, and the forest roads are damaged.

What is the indirect damage?
The indirect damage will occur later. If not all coniferous trees are removed from the forests by the beginning of spring, especially spruce trees, these become ideal culture medium for bark beetle. Usually such a catastrophe is followed by bark beetle proliferation in the following years, which additionally worsen the conditions. Such decimated forests are also subjected to windthrow, as they can't resist the force of wind. We can expect all that in future. The consequences are unpredictable and at the moment it is difficult to estimate the total damage.

We don't have a lot of influence on nature. Could any new directives make the rehabilitation easier, or somehow help?
No organisation and no individual can be adequately prepared for such conditions, especially such as they were at the epicentre of the event. Similarly, the Slovenian Forest Institute can't promise prompt services to all the forest owners. There are not enough contractors to perform the work. Therefore the first part of the rehabilitation, the removal of the fallen wood, will take a couple of years.

Do you still advise people against going into forests?
I would like to warn people who go into forests to refrain from doing it until the conditions improve drastically. Those forest owners who consider themselves incapable of cutting the trees by themselves should hire professional teams registered for that kind of work. Each year in Slovenia ten to 20 lives are lost because of forest accidents, and it should be taken into account that cleaning sleet damage is much more demanding than regular cutting of trees. We fear fatal accidents will happen, which nobody wants. It is rather surprising that sleet damage caused no casualties until now – and we hope it will remain so.