Fire alert system to save our forests

A satellite-linked fire alert system, developed by NASA and currently on trial in Madhya Pradesh, is turning out to be an effective tool in saving wildlife and bio-diversity from forest fires. Chetan Chauhan examines... Tracking forests blaze.

Updated on: May 27, 2008, 24:38:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A satellite-linked fire alert system, developed by NASA and currently on trial in Madhya Pradesh, is turning out to be an effective tool in saving wildlife and bio-diversity from forest fires.

This computer programme, called Fire Alert and Message System (FAMS), has been developed by NASA and the University of Maryland, US.

With the help of the alert system, in place since April 2007, forest officials now respond to fire outbreaks faster. The reaction time has been reduced to two hours from the earlier eight hours to even a couple of days. Locating the place of fire in forest areas was difficult, said a forest department official.

Such delays can cause major losses to Indian forests every year. A moderate Forest Survey of India (FSI) estimate says that timber worth Rs 35 crore is lost in fires in 63 million hectares of Indian forests every day, apart from unaccounted damage to bio-diversity.

But if figures from a UN study in 1987 are calculated on the present prices, the annual loss is estimated to be around Rs 410 crores, says environment ministry estimates. FSI data shows that 50 per cent of Indian forests are fire prone.

India's first system, a combination of satellite-based detection of fire and a computer programme, sends an alert to the nearest forest official whenever it detects a fire, reducing the reaction time by several hours.

The system processes remote sensing data of active fire locations obtained through a satellite and then sends alerts through SMSes and e-mails from the nearest beat guard to the state's chief conservator of forests.

The system also builds the database of fire locations, which can be used to identify fire sensitive zones scientifically and also to plan fire control strategy.

Now, for the first time the MP government knows that it lost 2.36 per cent of the total forest area in the fire season of 2007.

The state government has also found that forests of Sehore, Odedullahganj, Raisen, Jabalpur, Burhanpur and Sheopur are most fire prone forests in the state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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