After eight long days, the blaze that swept through the Numrug Strictly Protected Area, a refuge for red deer and moose, has finally been put out. The wildfire broke out at 11:55 a.m. on October 8 in the Bichigt Undur area of Tsogtsumber bag, Khalkhgol soum, Dornod Province, and was completely extinguished at 7:00 a.m. on October 16. As of 2:00 p.m. on October 15, officials from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had said the flames were still not fully out.
The terrain made a hard job even harder. The area is so remote that even people and livestock struggle to reach it, and vehicles are out of the question. Emergency personnel had to ford rivers and ride in on horseback, arriving in small groups to take on the fire. More than 600 people joined the fight. Crews came from six provinces, including Umnugovi, Dornogovi, Khentii and Sukhbaatar, as well as the capital’s Baganuur District. They stood shoulder to shoulder with Khalkhgol Soum Fire and Rescue Unit No. 62, local residents, administrative staff of the protected area and border troops, backed by 100 pieces of equipment and machinery. Their efforts paid off when the fire was brought under control at 12:55 a.m. on October 13, and the firebreak held until the last embers died out.
The victory came at a heavy price. Fully 80 percent of the reserve has gone up in smoke. Preliminary estimates from the agency put the affected area at roughly 633,600 hectares, making this the largest fire Khalkhgol Soum has seen in a decade. The full extent of the damage, and the question of who should answer for it, will now be settled. An investigation is already under way.
The blaze also came hot on the heels of the tragedy in the capital, where a bear attacked a ger and killed a person. The two events may be pure coincidence, but together they serve as a wake-up call that we cannot afford to let our guard down.
Authorities have long urged the public to take extreme care in forests and on the steppe during spring and autumn. In these dry seasons the land is a tinderbox, and a single spark is enough to set it alight. It is a bitter irony that we are the ones putting our own homeland to the torch. By some accounts, more than 90 percent of forest and steppe fires are caused by human activity.
The numbers tell the story. Between 2020 and 2025, 896 fires swept across the country, scorching seven million hectares and causing damages of more than 160 billion MNT. Since the start of this year alone, 174 fires have broken out nationwide, and the Numrug blaze is one of them. Before we weigh the questions this particular fire raises, it is worth looking back at how law enforcement and regulatory authorities have handled earlier fire cases.
7 cases reach the courts
In the first 10 months of this year, prosecutors brought charges in seven cases under Section 24.7 of the Criminal Code, which covers starting forest or steppe fires, and sent them to court. The fires struck the forests of Bulgan, Selenge and Khuvsgul provinces and the steppe of Dornod Province.
Case One: A handful of dry grass was all it took. On September 2 of last year, an individual identified as Z.M. was driving through an area known as Sangiin Dalai in Khalkhgol soum, Dornod Province. Z.M. failed to clear the grass that had built up around the vehicle’s exhaust system. It caught fire, and the flames swept across the steppe. When the smoke finally cleared, 23,000 hectares of pastureland lay blackened.
The total bill came to 136.8 million MNT. That includes 76.1 million MNT in environmental damage, 2.8 million MNT in firefighting costs and 57.8 million MNT in property losses suffered by a private citizen. Prosecutors indicted Z.M. under Subsection 24.7.1 of the Criminal Code, alleging that the blaze resulted from careless handling of fire or flammable materials, and referred the case to court.
The Interdistrict Court of First Instance for Criminal Cases in Dornod Province found the defendant guilty and handed down a one-year suspended sentence. Weighing the defendant’s degree of fault and financial means, the court cut the environmental compensation from 76.1 million MNT to 7.6 million MNT, to be paid to the Environment and Climate Fund. That is a 10-fold reduction. The court also ordered a total of 60.7 million MNT paid to the victim and civil claimants.
Case Two: In April of last year, at a spot known as Dund Davaa in Tsagaannuur, Selenge Province, an individual identified as Ts.E. set fire to household waste outside his home. The flames did not stay put. They spread into a forest and steppe fire that devoured 5,300 hectares, including farm fields and pasture. Prosecutors indicted Ts.E. and referred the case to court, noting that the blaze caused 8.6 billion MNT in environmental damage. The province’s inter-soum court of first instance found him guilty and handed down a one-year suspended sentence. During the proceedings, he paid for the damage.
Case Three: At a place called Khoyor Davaa in Zuunburen Soum, Selenge Province, a citizen identified as B.T. started a forest and steppe fire while using a metal cutter. A single spark did the rest. The flames spread across 4,100 hectares in two soums and caused 2.2 billion MNT in environmental damage. A separate indictment was issued over the destruction of property belonging to eight citizens, with total losses of 90.7 million MNT. The court found B.T. guilty and imposed a two-year probationary period with no custodial sentence.
These cases show that those who harm the environment do face some form of penalty. However, the penalties tell only half the story. Over the past two years, courts nationwide have ruled on 797 crimes against the environment. Those offenses caused 25 billion MNT in damage, but only 6.09 billion MNT has been recovered. Put plainly, efforts to collect compensation have fallen well short.
In most cases, the people behind forest and steppe fires acted out of negligence or carelessness. That is no excuse, and it does not let anyone off the hook for the damage they cause. Just as important is prevention. Making sure that state-protected areas and strictly protected zones have the personnel, equipment and resources to head off fires, and to strike back quickly when one breaks out, has become a matter of national urgency.
Dornod in line of fire
If Mongolia has a wildfire problem, Dornod Province is where it burns hottest, and Khalkhgol Soum sits at the very center of it. Over the past decade, from 2016 to 2025, the country recorded 1,458 forest and steppe fires. Nearly a quarter of them, 23.5 percent, broke out within Dornod Province, and 88 were logged in Khalkhgol soum alone. Officials say that among all these blazes, the fires in the Numrug Strictly Protected Area have swallowed up the largest stretches of land.
The reserve’s history makes for sobering reading. A review of fire frequency across the country over the past 26 years shows that Numrug has been struck by anywhere from one to 11 separate fires. A place this precious should be guarded like the apple of the eye, by the local rangers and the reserve’s administration alike. One cannot help asking whether it has been. The record suggests that the watch has too often been loose.
Numrug is far from the only wound. Wildfires in the Bogd Khaan and Khentii mountain ranges have become a depressingly familiar sight, so common that they barely raise an eyebrow anymore. In Selenge Province, a vital farming region, more than 20 fires were recorded last year alone. These figures describe a country that is living on a knife’s edge every spring and autumn.
This latest blaze, however, is different in kind. It raises hard questions about the accountability of those who hold power and official positions, and it cannot be dismissed as one person’s moment of carelessness. Both the Japanese and Mongolian directors of the company Mobicom have been drawn into the case, and law enforcement authorities are expected to get to the bottom of what went on behind closed doors. Yasuhiro Ochi, the company’s CEO, has apologized to the Mongolian people and pledged to cover the damages. But an apology is far easier to give than a landscape is to restore, and the full cost has yet to be tallied.
The human and natural toll is already coming into focus. Local residents say the wildlife has fled the scorched earth and that medicinal plants and extremely rare species have been wiped out. Some will say the grass will grow back next year if the rains are kind. That may well be true, but it is cold comfort. The land will never be what it was, and the animals that fled will not simply wander back once the smoke clears.
Member of Parliament U.Shijir shared his concerns with journalists. He expressed that Mobicom’s board of directors has met and dismissed the CEO, who is reportedly returning to Japan. He asked how the matter would be resolved and why it was covered up in the first place. By his account, the fire tore through 633,600 hectares of the reserve, an area many times the size of the entire nation of Singapore. With damage on that scale, he argued, the question of accountability cannot be swept under the rug.
U.Shijir also asked whether this case will end the way another one did, with the sentencing of a single driver after the incident on the road near the Dunjingarav shopping center. If so, he suggested, the public would be right to feel that justice had been served on the small fish while the big ones swam free. He further questioned whether the NEMA is truly equipped to face fires of this magnitude, given that crews had to ford rivers and ride in on horseback just to reach the flames.
The law, it should be said, is not silent here. Mongolia has a legal framework for seeking compensation for environmental damage, and the public is now calling for it to be put to work. People want the law upheld. They want those responsible held to account, with no room to slip through the net. And they want the damage paid for in full, because a nation that lets its own homeland burn without consequence is a nation that will see it burn again.
