Forest fires on rise in Madhya Pradesh

In every summer, forest fires become biggest concern for the department. Fire incident not only destroy flora and fauna but also proves bane to reptiles and many other wild animals. Every year, fire incidents are rising in State. Taking cue from past, now the Forest Department is gearing itself in more efficient manner to control such incidents effectively. During year 2017, 13,809 hectare jungles were burnt in fire across State while since October 2018 till now, over 20,000 fire incidents have been reported from several forest areas of Madhya Pradesh. Wild animals and reptiles die in fire and Forest Department finds itself helpless in extinguishing the fire due to inadequate preparation and lack of resources. As summer season has started, once again, threat of forest fire is standing as a biggest challenge before foresters.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) B K Mishra said, “We are all prepared to deal with the fire incidents in forest areas during summer season. Field officers and guards have been put on alert and best effort will be made to keep the flora and fauna safe. Modern satellites are being used to ensure safety of jungles.” Mishra further informed that concerned department is monitoring the forest areas through several satellites, including Modis Satellite of America, National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (NPOOES) of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Dehradun and System Preparatory Project (SNPP). These satellites present real time data of forest areas and help in best possible way to keep update with the real situation. B K Mishra said that SNPP capture the images of even small fire incidents and releases real time data. He said that even small incidents of fire line are also being captured in SNPP due to which numbers of fire incidents are looking higher in our record. He said in past six month, no major fire incident has been reported from forest areas of State. Forest Department is using Modis satellite for state forest areas for past one year.

But last year the satellite was locked due to some technical error. This year technician has been called to unlock the satellite. This satellite will help to provide images of fire incidents on interval of six hours. According to the data provided by the Forest Department, highest loss happened in Balaghat forest area with 2,247 hectare of land burnt in fire which is 1,439 hectare more than the year 2016. Forest Department has released the fire incident report of year 2017 in which Khandwa forest areas is the second most affected with 1,998 hectare of land. In Khandwa, Burhanpur forest range is most affected area with 1,475 hectare of land. Jabalpur forest range is on third number with 694 hectare of land. According to reports of Forest Department, fire incidents have risen in Harda and Hoshangabad ranges. In year 2016, Harda witness fire on 70 hectare of land and Hoshangabad forest range witnessed fire on 74 hectare of land while in year 2017 the fire affected land increased to 205 and 279 respectively. In year 2015 there were no fire incident in Hoshangabad and only 2 hectare of land burnt in Harda. In the same way, Jabalpur has also witnessed increasing number of fire incidents. In year 2015, 8 hectare of land burnt in Jabalpur while in year 2016 254 hectare of land burnt. In year 2017, 422 hectare of land affected with the fire incident. In North Balaghat forest circle 7 hectare of land burnt in year 2015 while in year 2016, 153 hectare of land burnt and in year 2017 affected area increased to 1411 hectare. On condition of anonymity, a senior forest official said, “we receive the information of fire incidents through Forest Fire Alert System.

There are no parameters to certify the incidents as it works through satellite. Through this fire alert system, we can check the pictures of forest areas twice in a day. Sometimes, system displays the fire of nearby farm house or fields as fire.” He further said in lack of proper information and accurate data, department fail to extinguish the fire and control the situation. According to data provided by the MP Forest Department on its official website, there are 95 fire incidents in year 2014, 12 fire incidents in year 2015, 118 in year 2016 and 1033 fire incidents reported in year 2017. Since January 2014 to 2017, there are 1264 fire incidents alone in Bhopal forest circle.