According to the Forest Survey Institute (FSI), several beats, reserve forests (RF), demarcated protected forests (DPF) and protected reserve forests (PRF) are devastated due to manmade fire. Statistics of the FSI depict that 784 fire points were there on March 7 in Rayagada district.
This came down to 289 on March 8, 53 on 9, 45 on 10 , increased to 164 on 11 , subsided to 101 on 12 and finally to 20 on March 13. As there is extreme heat due to the present summer, the intensity of fire has been doubled.
Fortunately, because of the FAST system developed by the FSI, fire alerts are made and messages are sent to concerned authorities on real time basis for quick action.
“It is unfortunate that the fire incidents are mostly man-made. The forest dependents put fire on the fallen dried leaves and twigs to collect mahua flowers, tendu leaf, tamarind and sal seeds. In a few patches, tribal perform podu(shifting or burn and slash cultivation) on rotational basis. Sometimes, the local forest dwellers do it for akhand shikar (continuous hunting) and charcoal. Scores of medicinal flora in all the forests and especially in Niyamagiri hills range are gone," said Rabindra Patakhandal, an RTI activist and State convenor of Odisha Suchana Adhikar Mancha.
District Collector Saroj Kumar Mishra reviewed the grievous situation in the district and instructed all the BDOs and Tehsildars to raise awareness among public and if need be, take punitive action.
Accordingly joint operations were initiated at block levels by respective BDOs, Tehsildars, fire officers, police and forest rangers. Awareness and orientation workshops were organised for elected PRI members, SHG leaders, VSS and NGO functionaries and other rural gentries. Monitoring visits to hotspots were conducted by the forest officials.In the fire points, nine special squads with 90 forest staff alongwith 1,016 VSSs are engaged to put off the fire following technical methods.
According to ACF Prabhakar Senapati, out of 1,716 fire points in toto, 1,415 have been attended and the fire put off till date.
DFO Aswini Kumar Kar is coordinating all these initiatives with the help of the ODRAF team, which has arrived Saturday.