Air Force steps in to douse Uttarakhand’s forest fires

Dehradun/New Delhi: As the raging forest fires continue to engulf vast swathes of land across Uttarakhand, the Indian Air Force today began operations to control the situation even as the Centre said it was taking the incident “very seriously” with all possible firefighting measures. An Mi-17 chopper made several sorties in Nainital district sprinkling water lifted from a lake to douse the raging forest fires in Almakhan, Kilbari and Nalena areas.

IAF's Mi-17 lifts water from Bhimtal lake in Nainital to spray it over areas affected by the forest fire in Uttarakhand on Sunday. ANI photo

Tribune News Service

Dehradun/New Delhi, May 1

As the raging forest fires continue to engulf vast swathes of land across Uttarakhand, the Indian Air Force today began operations to control the situation even as the Centre said it was taking the incident “very seriously” with all possible firefighting measures.

An Mi-17 chopper made several sorties in Nainital district sprinkling water lifted from a lake to douse the raging forest fires in Almakhan, Kilbari and Nalena areas. Low visibility, however, prevented a second chopper from being deployed in Pauri district for the operations in the hill state. The forest fires have so far killed seven persons, destroyed 2,269 hectares of forested land and spread to sparsely populated remote hill areas.

Teams of the specialised National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), meanwhile, have fanned out in 13 affected areas of three districts of Pauri Garhwal, Almora and Chamoli to tackle the massive blaze.

WATCH: IAF's Mi-17 v5 lifts water from Bhimtal (Nainital) & sprays it over areas affected by #UttarakhandForestFire https://t.co/cZVI0O9ts1
— ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2016

Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the situation and held discussions with the Uttarakhand Government officials. He also offered all assistance from the Centre.

“With choppers pressed into service and all security agencies, besides locals, involved in firefighting operations, the situation is likely to be brought under control in a couple of days, Principal Conservator of Forest (PCF) BP Gupta said.

With the MeT Department predicting a significant fall in day temperatures after May 2, forest fires may come under control after a couple of days, he said, but added that the administration will have to remain alert for the next 35 days to prevent fresh forest fire incidents. Since the beginning of the forest fire season in the state in February, 922 incidents have occurred so far.

Forest fires are natural during summer but this time they have occurred on a bigger scale as the fire season, which normally begins by February 15 and ends by June 15, started early on February 2. (with PTI inputs)

In Rajasthan, the highest temperature of 46.5°C was recorded at Phalodi town in Jodhpur district, followed by Sri Ganganagar (46.3), Churu (46), Bikaner (45.8), Barmer (45.2) and Jaipur (43.3).