Personnel of various departments were mobilised for a mock exercise on forest fires conducted by the State disaster management department with the assistance of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in all the districts of the State on Thursday.
The forest department along with various other departments concerned participated in the exercise along with the Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force, Sashastra Seema Bal, Central Reserve Police Force and National Disaster Relief Force with the Army also deputing independent observers to evaluate the effectiveness of the exercise. The exercise on Thursday made Uttarakhand the first State in India to hold a mock exercise based on the incident response system for forest fires.
According to officials, such exercises are also necessary for a State like Uttarakhand considering the large area under forest cover and the abundance of pine trees in areas made vulnerable to forest fires.
In the past few decades, a dramatic change has been witnessed in weather related incidents with a considerable rise in forest related incidents also being registered.
As part of the mock exercise held in all the districts of Uttarakhand, information related to all activities was gathered at the State emergency operation centre and necessary instructions were issued in cases where required. On receiving information about forest fires in the various districts, the personnel of the local administration, forest department and fire service department teams reached the incident sites.
In case of special requirements, the assistance of the NDRF and State Disaster Response Force was also taken. The geographic information system (GIS) was also used in the mock exercise along with helicopters to bring fires in remote areas under control. Officials informed that during the mock exercise, forest fire situations were created at 33 locations in reserved and Panchayat forests in the various districts of the State. These incidents of forest fires were calculated to have destroyed a total of about 4.50 hectare forest area in the districts. The mock exercise was also considered to have resulted in three fatalities with 80 persons and 45 animals being considered injured. Those considered injured were taken to the local hospital while the veterinary and animal husbandry department arranged for the treatment of animals considered injured. After the mock exercise, agreement was reached on the need for augmenting fire tenders, DNA sampling, ice slabs, gloves, masks, boots, proper treatment of injured humans and animals apart from increasing the fire fighting force.
Officials also recommended provision of technical equipment for fire fighting in the districts. It was further agreed upon that a mock exercise for land slides which occur frequently in the State during the monsoon season will be conducted next.