The Centre on Sunday rushed teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and choppers to control the ravaging fires in the forests of Uttarakhand’s Garhwal and Kumaon regions with Nainital, Almora, Tehri and Pauri districts being the worst-hit. As many as four persons and seven animals have lost their lives so far in the fires.
More than 39 new forest fire incidents have been reported in the last 48 hours, taking the number of such incidents this year to 983 affecting 1,292 hectares of land compared to 172 hectares in the last calendar year.