Uttarakhand / Forest fire is wreaking havoc in Garhwal-Kumaon divisions, highest number of cases in this season

Forest fire is wreaking havoc in Garhwal and Kumaon divisions of the state. The highest figures of this fire season have been revealed on Tuesday. Incidents of forest fires have been reported at a total of 124 places in the state. There is a report of one person getting burnt in the fire. The Forest Department seems to be compelled in front of this. Now the department has sought help from the districts. In this episode, on Tuesday, Commissioner Garhwal Sushil Kumar has directed all the District Magistrates and SSPs to bring down the incidents of fire by coordinating.

According to the data released by the Chief Conservator of Forests, Forest Fire and Disaster Management Office till 4 pm on Tuesday, 124 incidents of forest fire were reported in the state in the last 24 hours. In Garhwal, 55 in the reserved forest area, three in the civil forest panchayat area, a total of 58 incidents of forest fire were registered. At the same time, 46 incidents were registered in the reserved forest area in Kumaon region, 15 in the civil forest panchayat area, a total of 61 incidents were registered. Similarly, five incidents of forest fire were also reported in protected wildlife parks. A total of 253 hectares of forest area has been affected in these incidents of forest fire, while an economic loss of more than six lakh 40 thousand has been assessed.

Talking about the entire fire season, a total of 1216 incidents of forest fire have been reported so far this year. These include 523 incidents in Garhwal, 625 in Kumaon and 68 in protected wildlife areas. Of these, 1872 hectares of forest area has been affected. While the economic loss has been assessed to be more than Rs 50 lakh. At the same time, one person has died with four people injured.

On the other hand, on Tuesday, Commissioner Garhwal Mandal Sushil Kumar took a meeting of District Magistrates, Police Captains, Forest Officers and District Nodal Divisional Forest Officers of all the districts of the Mandal through video conferencing. In which he directed the officers of the district to extinguish the fire in the forests by coordinating it and bring down the incidents of fire.

The Garhwal commissioner also asked to take the help of civil society along with village panchayats for this. DIG Garhwal was also directed to file a report against the people who started the fire. Apart from this, topics like fire budget, availability of other equipment, items for the needs of fire personnel, etc. were discussed. Along with this, the help of NDRF was also asked to be taken.

CCF Garhwal Sushant Patnaik, Forest Conservator Shivalik Circle Dheeraj Pandey, Forest Conservator Garhwal Circle NN Pandey, Chief Forest Conservator of Forests and Disaster Management Nishant Verma, District Magistrates, SSPs and Nodal Divisional Forest Officers of all districts were present in the meeting.

Students and villagers put out forest fire

School children and villagers extinguished the forest fire in Semdungra village of Dasholi block. Several hectares of forest and wheat crop were burnt by the fire.

A fire broke out in the forest of Semdungra village on Monday night. By morning the fire had reached near the village. Seeing this, the villagers started extinguishing the fire. When the fire started reaching Girls Junior High School, Semdungra, school children under the leadership of headmaster Sudarshan Singh Topal also started extinguishing the fire. Village head Rajendra Singh and sarpanch Jai Singh Farswan told that the wheat crop standing in the fields has been burnt due to the fire.

He said that the fire has been extinguished after a lot of effort. On the other hand, the forest fire of Dhanpur in Gauchar range was brought under control before reaching Nagnath range. Under the leadership of Forest Inspector Anand Singh Rawat, the team first cut the fire line and then extinguished the fire with green twigs.

Fire reached the population in Dadamandi, two buildings burnt

The forest fires have now started reaching the population and the towns. On Monday night, the forest fire reached Dwaramandi town and population of Dwarkhal block, where two abandoned buildings caught fire. Firefighters brought the fire under control after a two-hour effort.

On Monday night, suddenly the forest fire spread and reached Dadamandi town. Two deserted buildings were burnt by the fire. Seeing the fire in the buildings in the middle of the settlement, there was panic among the people. Seeing the danger of fire in other nearby buildings, people first tried to extinguish the fire. After this, the fire department was informed over the phone. The fire brigade reached on the information, after a struggle of about two hours, somehow the fire was brought under control. There was no damage as the building was vacant, the wood in the building got burnt.

Fortunately, the fire did not spread to nearby houses, otherwise there could have been loss of life and property. The local people demanded the forest department to douse the fire in the forests. Firemen Gajendra Bhatt, Anusuya Prasad Gaur, Mohd. Arshad, Pankaj, Gajendra Bhatt helped. Revenue sub-inspector Rajesh Rana told that there was a fire in two deserted buildings in Dadamandi. No one lived in those buildings. The damage caused by the fire will be assessed.