Under its wildfire safety plan in view of the summer season ahead, the Almora district administration has divided the entire district into four divisions. Setting up two master control rooms at the divisional forest headquarter, it has set up as many as 20 master crew stations at different forest range headquarters and 118 crew stations at village level to protect the forests from wildfire in Almora during summer season ahead.
It is worth mention here that presence of pine forests in abundance i.e. in about 62 percent of total forest cover of the district, makes the Almora forests more vulnerable to wildfire as compared to Terai forests. Since wildfire has been declared as natural calamity, therefore, some other agencies including the revenue department, PWD, police, fire department, education department, municipal council to name a few will also be involved in this wildfire control campaign along with the forest department, said Prem Kumar, Divisional Forest Officer, Almora.
“Besides, we have also appealed to the public to cooperate with the forest department in protecting the forests from wildfire,” added Kumar. In the meanwhile, Vinod Kumar Suman, District Magistrate, Almora, has also asked the officials concerned to take all the precautionary measures to control the wildfire in the summer season ahead. He also stressed on the need to create awareness about protecting the forests from wildfire.