With 53 per cent of the country’s forest areas being prone to forest fires, things look grim as the summer is drawing near. With the mercury to rise in summer, the possibility of fire engulfing the forests is high and keeping this in mind the forest department has made full preparations to control the forest fires in Pauri district, claimed an officer, adding that forest fires occur between March 15 and June 15.
The good news, however, till now has been that due to continuous spell of rains in the hill districts in April, there is no report of forest fire incidents so far. Despite this fact Uttarakhand is bracing for the days ahead. In 2013, the Uttarakhand Government had ordered supply of forest fire control equipment worth Rs 150 lakh. Additional principal conservator environment Dehradun purchased them to put an end to forest fire menace. About 700 fire kits were distributed among seven districts spread across Garhwal region in 2014.
Divisional Forest Officer Garhwal division Raj Mani Pandey said, “Pauri district had received these fire kits last year. But this financial year, we have received nothing so far. The budget for the fire lines was released in March 2015.”
Moreover, the Uttarakhand Forest Ministry claimed they have been able to control fires by creating fire lines for summer. The forest department creates a control line, an area where the officials remove all the fuel so that the fire doesn’t spread in the forest.
All told, nine per cent of the forest areas is hit by frequent fire and 44 per cent is prone to occasional fire.
The ecological and socio-economic consequences of forest fires in India involves loss of timber, bio-diversity, wildlife habitat, wood and other forest products, damage of water and other natural resources.
An area of 6,77,700 hectare was affected by fires in the summer of 1995 in the hills of Uttar Pradesh and Himanchal Pradesh. As per the assessment of forest cover burnt in forest fire based on the interpretation of satellite data, 4,492 sq km of forest cover out of 23,254 sq km in Uttarakhand (the then hill area of UP), was affected by fire which amounted to 19.32 per cent of the erstwhile State’s total forest cover is the highest in any State.
After the creation of Uttarakhand, things have not improved a bit. About 147 instances of forest fires had been reported to have engulfed about 255 hectares of forest area in April-May 2014.
According to the Uttarakhand Forest Statistics 2013, the fire affected area in terms of hectares in 2010-2011 was 231.8, in 2011-12 2826.3 and in 2012-13 has 2823.9.