The Director of the "Vitosha" Nature Park; Eng. Sevdalina Dimitrova described to journalists the case in which a woman died earlier today as a result of a fallen tree on a moving car on Vitosha, as a "ridiculous accident".
She did not commit to who is to blame, citing the need to form a commission to determine the exact coordinates of the tree and the status of the property.
I cannot say whose responsibility it is, because I cannot say what the property is. The property must be checked to see whose it is, said Eng. Dimitrova, quoted by BTA.
According to her, the land is private property according to the cadastre, but it is also marked as land for public use. She emphasized that the ownership has yet to be established and whether it falls under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Act or Sofia Municipality.
“Since the property is formulated as such for public use and probably falls within an urbanized area, the responsibility may be directed to the municipality“, admitted Eng. Dimitrova.
On October 20, a commission including representatives of Sofia Municipality, the Regional Forestry Directorate (RDG-Sofia, DGS and PP "Vitosha") toured the area, but did not mark this tree as dangerous. The tree was located 6-7 meters inland from the road and there were no external signs of danger (the rot was internal), which is why it was not removed during the last inspection.
Eng. Mitrova stated that staying in a forest area is at one's own risk and citizens must comply with weather conditions. She also said that the responsibility for reporting dangerous trees is shared and any citizen can file a report.
She reported that she personally went to the site to check the situation.
What we saw with our colleagues from the Regional Forestry Directorate is that there is indeed a fallen tree, located 6-7 meters inland from the road, which previously did not give any indication that it could be dangerous, but given the weather conditions today, the strong winds that were blowing, it is likely that the tree simply fell under the pressure of the winds and the unpleasant incident occurred, commented Eng. Dimitrova.
She indicated that a commission would be appointed once again and a new team would come to inspect the trees again, but warned that if snow falls, there may be additional trees after inspection that could again be dangerous.