Under the Law on Fire Safety, Firefighting and Rescue Operations, the forest fire risk season begins on 1 April and will run until 30 September. During this period, the public must comply with fire safety requirements on forest land and prevent fires from breaking out. The Law on Fire Safety, Firefighting and Rescue Operations adopted in 2025 stipulates that from now on the forest fire risk season will be a fixed period each year, running from 1 April to 30 September.

During this period, people in forests and bogs are prohibited from:

• dropping burning or smouldering matches, cigarette ends or other objects;
• lighting campfires, except at specially prepared sites that prevent the fire from spreading beyond them;
• leaving campfires unattended;
• burning waste;
• driving motor vehicles through forests and bogs off the roads;
• carrying out any other activity that could cause a fire.

The law states that responsibility for fire safety on a forest property lies with the forest owner or lawful possessor. The forest owner must ensure that forest roads and rides are cleared of fallen trees and shrubs so that forest firefighting vehicles can move freely if the need arises. Forest owners should also be aware that, once a forest fire has been put out, monitoring the site of the fire is the owner's responsibility.

Firefighting and rescue crews, for their part, are permitted to enter a forest property without the owner's consent, to move vehicles and to use water bodies on the property. Officials of the State Forest Service have the right to stop a motor vehicle on a forest property where this is necessary for fire safety reasons. They may also halt forestry and logging work and fell trees obstructing access, informing the forest owner within a week of the fire being put out.

The rule remains in force that no burning of any kind may be carried out on a forest property without the agreement of the nearest forest district of the relevant State Forest Service unit, including the burning of felling residues.

Since the beginning of this year, the State Forest Service has recorded and extinguished 9 forest fires. These affected 5.3 ha of forest, of which 2.7 ha were young stands. In total, there were 201 forest fires in Latvia in 2025, with a burnt area of 73 ha, of which 18 ha were young stands.