Preventive measures a must to curb scourge of forest fires

THIS year, much like previous years, fires are raging through forests in parts of India. The situation is particularly grim in Uttarakhand, where thousands of hectares of forests are burning. With wildfires tearing through the hill state, the situation has become critical. It is a well-known fact that forest fires occur between November and June in India. Adequate preparedness should be ensured to prevent and get a blaze under control quickly. But the authorities are having a hard time tackling the problem. Officials try to evade responsibility by attributing such incidents to the dry weather or shifting the entire blame to anti-social elements. But the failure of the government to manage forest fires is a clear outcome of unpreparedness and unpardonable negligence on the part of the authorities in Uttarakhand and all over India.

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The Forest Survey of India (FSI) in the State of Forest Report 2021, which was released in 2022, stated that 3,45,989 cases of forest fire occurred in 2021, the highest in the country so far. The year witnessed almost one lakh more instances of forest fire than 2019. The report should have alerted the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and state governments all over the country. We must understand that our forest resources are critical for sustaining humans as well as wildlife. Let’s discuss practical solutions to handle forest fires which occur year after year, with disastrous consequences for the ecology and the economy, but are forgotten by all once the rain gods smile.

During my tenure in the Ministry of Environment and Forests from 1997 to 2002, I had devised a fire-fighting strategy for the country and calculated the loss annually. I attended an international seminar organised by the Indonesian government at Bagor in the aftermath of the devastating fires witnessed in that country’s coal-bearing forests in 1999. There was consensus at the meeting that it is better to prevent wildfires than to wait for them to happen and try to get them under control, because once it turns into an inferno, it is impossible for any technological equipment to control it. A new guideline was issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2001, and the idea of using planes and helicopters to douse forest fires was dropped. It was because India doesn’t have long stretches of forests, unlike in Canada, the US and Australia, where aerial foams are used with solid ground equipment.

A decision was taken to assign funds to the FSI to use satellites and alert the forest departments concerned within minutes of a forest fire being detected. This practice continues today. The FSI immediately informs the staff concerned about fire incidents. Each forest division must maintain, repair and clear the forest fire lines before November and remove the fuel load from the fire lines and the adjoining forests. Before November, each range and forest division must have a fire prevention plan in place — indicating the vulnerable areas — prepare risk assessment, instal an early warning system and put it into practice (such as stationing the equipment, water bag packs, etc). Areas near habitations must be mapped for risk management.

Special funds were earmarked for Joint Forest Management/van panchayats to engage villagers and extend help during fire seasons. The states were directed to invoke Section 79 of the Indian Forest Act, under which villagers and government servants are duty-bound to report forest fires and help control them and teams are to be kept ready for each identified area. The ministry must have reinvented and reasserted these guidelines every year. Now it is for the states to determine why they feel helpless each time a fire occurs when a procedure is already in place. It is for them to find out the reasons for the lack of fire surveillance or preparedness and who is responsible for that.

If state administrations and forest officers follow a strictly planned and supervised regimen of fire prevention and disaster control with sufficient equipment, manpower, funds and constant monitoring, forest fires can mostly be prevented and curtailed. The management of fuel load and human interference is a key factor, and supervision and mock drills before and during the fire season with the involvement of panchayats and locals are necessary for ensuring zero tolerance to fire incidents. A scrutiny of the standard operating procedures is essential, and the CM of each state must be proactive because, as it seems now, intervention only at that level can make the system work.

The Prime Minister and the Environment Minister must haul up the bureaucracy and take drastic steps to not only prevent forest fires but also to tackle the increasing number of landslides and other natural disasters in the country, with a special focus on the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami has taken charge of the situation, rousing state officials to action. The results are showing at the ground level, but much damage has already been done.

All political parties should help educate people about the perils of setting a forest on fire. The negligence of foresters in the field has been well known for the past few years, when religious structures were raised in thousands under the nose of forest guards and rangers in Uttarakhand and thousands of hectares of forestland were encroached upon. It was only after the matter was repeatedly raised with the PMO that the CM took the initiative to get a few hundred of such encroachments demolished. However, no action has been taken against the field staff or officers in charge of the ranges and divisions. Everyone in the system must ensure accountability and good governance; that’s what the people of Uttarakhand want to see.