INDIA’S BURNING WILDS
The ‘forest fire’ season (Nov.-Jun.) is peaking, with the first big blaze reported from Sariska Tiger Reserve on March 29. The fire raged for three days and IAF choppers flew multiple sorties using a ‘Bambi bucket’ with water to douse it. The blaze destroyed around 10 square kilometres of forest land. Luckily, there were no major casualties among the wildlife—under threat were more than 20 resident tigers. While forest fires are common in dry, deciduous forests during the season, there has been a jump in their frequency of late. The Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) ‘State of the Forest Report 2021’, released in January 2022, conducted a vulnerability mapping that shows more than 10 per cent area is at very high risk and 36 per cent at medium risk. “In central India, a common reason is communities starting bushfires to clear the ground to collect mahua,” says R.N. Saxena, a former principal chief conservator of forests in MP.
Following the National Action Plan on Forest Fires (NAPFF) in 2018, the FSI now uses more technology, including satellite imagery, to monitor possible forest fires. Spots reporting higher than threshold temperatures at least six times in 24 hours are identified by the satellites at the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) at Shahnagar through the use of algorithms. The data is shared with the FSI, which sends out alerts to stakeholders with pinpoint locations. Technological interventions notwithstanding, forest fires continue to rage across the country. State forest departments blame it on manpower shortage, unfilled vacancies in forest-watching posts and lax enforcement of laws. ■