Army called in as forest fires rage in Uttarakhand; CM Dhami to preside meeting

The Indian Army was pressed into service as forest fires continued to rage in Uttarakhand, with Kumaon region being the worst hit.

Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Saturday said, “Forest fires are a challenge for us .....fire has continuously increased. We have been consistently preparing, working on things needed. We have also sought help from the Army...its helicopters have been pouring water. Our effort will be to control the forest fires as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, Dhami said he will preside over a meeting in Haldwani of Nainital district over the raging forest fires in the state.

Since November 1, 2023, as many as 575 incidents of forest fires have been reported in Uttarakhand, in which over 689.89 hectares of forest land have been damaged. Of the total land damaged, 234.45 hectares were damaged in the Garhwal region, 395.92 hectares in the Kumaon region and 59.52 hectares in the administrative wildlife regions. It has also resulted in a loss of ₹14.02 lakh to the state exchequer.

In the last 24 hours, 31 new incidents of forest fire were reported from various parts of the state, destroying 33.34 hectares of forest land.

In Rudraprayag district of Garhwal region, three people were arrested on Friday for allegedly trying to set fire to the forests.

On Friday evening, the flames of fire that broke out in the forest area near the district headquarters took a drastic turn after it reached the civilian area of high court Colony, with the forest department controlling the rage after hours of hard work.

Nainital divisional forest officer Chandrashekhar Joshi said, “We controlled the fire that reached the high court colony. Meanwhile, the Army in coordination with the district administration used their chopper to douse the forest fire near Lariyakanta where they have a station, which is a sensitive place.”

“We have been focusing on mopping up strategy to ensure we hold the fire line using equipment like fire beaters,” he said.

According to the official data, the forest department has registered 146 cases since the beginning of the year for “man-made” fire incidents.

In these cases, 17 people have been named and the rest 129 are unidentified. The officials said they are making efforts to identify those named in the cases as unidentified.

On Tuesday, Uttarakhand chief secretary Radha Raturi had instructed the forest officials concerned, police departments and district administrations to take strict action against people who are igniting fire in forests deliberately as she was informed that most of the forest fire incidents were man-made.

According to forest officials, forest fires have become an annual feature and with the change in weather conditions resulting in soaring temperatures, Uttarakhand starts experiencing forest fires in mid-February, when the trees shed dry leaves and the soil loses moisture due to a rise in temperature, and this continues till mid-June.

Since 2000, when the state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh, over 54,800 hectares of forest land have been damaged till now in forest fires.