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Odisha reports 578 forest fires over the last week, the highest in the country
Odisha principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Debidutta Biswal said the state was prepared. “We have kept mitigation plans at the district level ready to deal with the emerging situation”.
BHUBANESWAR: 578 incidents of fire have been reported in Odisha’s forests over the week between February 1 and Feb 8, 2023, the highest in the country, according to the Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) fire alerts system based on Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP). Another 541 fires were reported from Madhya Pradesh and 463 in Karnataka.
According to the FSI database, Odisha reported 121 instances of forest in the first week of February in 2022, 656 in 2021 and only 121 in 2020.
“The incidents of wildfires in the state are increasing at an alarming rate. If we experience a long dry spell, it may increase to over a thousand cases by April,” said Odisha’s principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Debidutta Biswal.
Biswal said the state was prepared. “We have kept mitigation plans at the district level ready to deal with the emerging situation”.
The FSI database indicated that Odisha reported 95 forest fires on Tuesday in Similipal, Baliguda, Phulbani and Sundargarh districts which are considered to be prone to wildfires.
Last week, panic gripped the people of Kanpura and Ekatali villages in the Dhenkanal district as fire from a nearby reserve forest spread to their farmland turning the paddy stubble into ashes. Efforts by villagers didn’t stop the fire which was eventually brought under control by fire department officials.
Weather scientist Uma Shankar Das said a prolonged absence of rainfall in the state has contributed to the risk.
“Though western disturbance brings some rains in the winter, Odisha did not see any rainfall in the last four months. This not just affected the length of the winter season, but kept the leaves and plants dry. The dry deciduous forests in the state are thus more vulnerable to fire. February has been unusually warm this year with the capital city of Bhubaneswar recording above normal daytime temperature,” Das said.
According to the State of Forest Report 2019, most of the 30,000 incidents of forest fires reported in India in 2019 were reported from Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and the southern states.
Of the 712,249 square km of forest cover in the country, 152,421 square km (21.4%) was considered to be either highly or extremely fire prone. Most of these vulnerable forests were in Odisha, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Manipur and Madhya Pradesh.
The Forest Survey of India has been conducting investigations in different parts of the country since 1965, keeping records of forest fires in sample plots and developing a forest fire alert system.
