In Uttarakhand, at February end one would witness garlands of forest fire wrapped around the hills at night. Daytime meant billowing clouds of smoke rising high into the sky. A sure-shot sign that our forests had fallen prey to greedy, all consuming flames.
Long spell of dry weather; low-lying land winds, rising mercury and forest fires ignited by the two-legged creatures made the perfect recipe for disaster.
In the summer of 2016, Uttarakhand saw infernos rage that wiped out everything in its path to ashes, more so in the Kumaon region. And two years down the road, in the summer of 2018, 4,480 hectares of forest cover was hit by 2,150 instances of forest fires.
In 2019, by the first week of April, close to a dozen incidents of forest fire in Garhwal and Kumaon region had decimated 15 hectares of forest cover, which meant a clear inestimable economic loss to the ex-chequer.
But this year there is a different story that must be told: to date ten hectares of green gold has gone up in flames, with financial loss of close to twenty four thousand rupees. “If we talk about previous years, this number would have been close to thousands of acres being destroyed by fire. Weather and the Covid-19 lockdown has given time for the forest to rejuvenate and stay green.” Uttarakhand PCCF Jairaj tells us, adding, “75%-80% credit goes to the weather. We have had rains almost every week. The remaining credit goes to the Covid-19 lockdown as well, as most of the fire instances in the hill-state are unfortunately man-made.”
He reassures us: “Things are well and truly under control. Fire-lines have been put in place and with Weather Gods being kind there is little to worry about.”
Forest fires have always been a growing threat to Uttarakhand’s 3,400 sq km of green forest that comes under a dark cloud every fire season. Covid-19 lockdown has not only given water sources, water-bodies and our four legged friends a new lease of life. Mercifully, our forest cover too has been spared its annual ritual of ‘Death by Fire.’
