Fighting forest fires with bare minimum

Insufficient funds, equipment hinder response

Hyderabad: With bare minimum equipment and insufficient funding, Forest department personnel are fighting against all odds to control forest fires in the State. This season, 1,500 forest fires have already been reported, damaging nearly 6,000 hectares of forest lands mostly under Nallamalla, Mulugu and other areas.

There are over 3,000 forest beats across the State and the department has only 550 fire blowers. Of these, at least 10 per cent of the equipment is under repair. Similarly, only 95 Quick Response Teams are deployed during the peak season with vehicles in vulnerable ranges, which is much lesser than the required number of teams.

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Generally, each forest beat is expected to have firefighting equipment, including blowers, rakes, spades, fire beaters, besides safety clothing, boots and helmets. But this equipment is hardly available to the personnel at the ground level. To put things in simple perspective, equipment worth about Rs.50 crore was required but the department has equipment worth barely Rs.3 crore, a Forest official said.

This apart, under the annual afforestation scheme, the department had sought Rs.150 crore from the government but only Rs.39 crore was sanctioned. Majority of these funds are used for maintenance of Quick Response Teams, vehicles operations, fuel expenditure, wages to the engaged personnel etc, other than establishment requirements.

Further, under the Forest Fire Prevention Management scheme for 2023-24 annual plan, the department had sought nearly Rs.13 crore but only Rs.2.5 crore was released. These funds are released with 60:40 ratio by Central and State governments respectively. Under CAMPA, Rs.4.3 crore was sought and these funds are likely to be released in a few days.

With day temperatures rising steadily this season, the incidence of forest fires are also increasing. The worst part is that majority of the forest fires are man-made.

Generally, beedi leaf contractors hire local youth to burn the trees and bushes as cutting and pruning them was cumbersome. This apart, Non-Timber Forest Product collection like mohua flower by tribals and other forest dependents, cattle grazers burning grass for their cattle, pilgrims cooking in forests, tribals collecting nannari (food material) etc are major reasons for forest fires.

Despite widespread incidents, the forest department hardly books cases against persons, who are mostly repeated offenders.

However, a senior official said the department has been closely tracking such offenders. “Our officials have caught a few offenders in Mulugu and Amrabad forest areas and cases were being booked under Wildlife Protection Act,” he said.

At Lingala, Mulugu, besides cancelling the licence of a beedi contractor, a case was being booked against the offender. Similarly, at Eturnagaram and Amrabad, cases were being booked. The department was initiating stern action on those involved in forest fires, he said.

Department measures to control forest firesPrincipal Chief Conservator of Forests RM Dobriyal said the department was closely monitoring forest fires and measures were being initiated immediately to control the spread of the fire.

Besides laying 21,739 km of firelines, 11,000 km peripheral trenches were dug to prevent spread of fire. A State-level fire monitoring and control cell was established in the headquarters to monitor the situation round the clock, besides facilitating forest fires alerts. Alerts can be shared over tollfree 14004255364, 1926 and 98033-38666 (WhatsApp number). Everyday about 30 to 50 forest fires were being reported and action was being taken immediately, he said.