Even as both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party express concern at the spread of forest fires coupled with drought like conditions, observers opine that both the parties had ignored corruption and other anomalies as in the procurement of fire fighting equipment by the forest department. Meanwhile, the foreigners living in places like Rishikesh have expressed shock at what they view as apathy and major inadequacies in the government machinery when it comes to controlling forest fires. People from different countries spending time in Rishikesh while undergoing Yoga courses at various Ashram and institutions state that the air in Rishikesh has been smokey for about four days now due to the number and proportion of forest fires in the surrounded hills.

According to information provided by the forest department, the status of forest fires in different parts of the State till April 26, a total of about 1886.54 hectare area has been affected by forest fires with total number of 918 incidents being reported from across the state. The loss from forest fires so far has been evaluated at about Rs 1,799,070.  With 238 incidents of forest fires affecting 932 hectare  land area, Pauri district has experienced highest incidents and area affected by forest fires among the 13 districts of Uttarakhand.

Forest department and district administration officials along with officers of the police and various other departments concerned have been holding series of meetings and reviewing the situation with comparatively lesser rainfall during this winter season and past couple of months exacerbating the drought like conditions making forest areas tinder dry and more vulnerable to forest fire. However, observers point out that the forest fire season started in February and since then at least two persons have been killed due to forest fire with a larger number of people sustaining injury. Departmental officials generally start to hold meetings on the subject before the start of the forest fire season and then later on periodic basis, meetings are held and visits are made to ensure prevention and control of forest fires. However, the meetings do not appear to have achieved much so far. Due to the less rainfall during the winter and past few months, the drought has created tinder dry conditions. Considering the drought conditions and climatic  factors, the departmental officials could have planned and executed tasks efficient to mitigate forest fires but this doesn’t seem to be the case, said an official on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, locals and tourists have expressed concern at forest fire spreading around Rishikesh area. A group of German tourists in Rishikesh for their yoga teacher training state, “We can‘t believe that nobody seems to care. The air is so bad. And the damage to nature is unimaginable. With the strong winds at the moment, fire gets spread even faster. We checked with the police what can be done, but they waved us off.”

Marina Wolny, a European married to an Indian living in Rishikesh for some years says that the smoke from the forest fires has exacerbated pollution in the air apart from causing considerable damage to environmental wealth.