Environment

KEY POINTS

Available approaches in addressing forest fire

·        Controlled burning –in safe seasons (say, during winter), so that by summer there would be nothing left to burn.

·        This is an extremely destructive practice, since it wipes out insects, small reptiles, seeds, herbs and bushes.

·        Fire Line – Thismethod contain the fire in compartments bordered by natural barriers such as streams, roads, and fire lines along hillsides or across plains.

·        A fire line is a line through a forest which has been cleared of all vegetation.

·        Once the blaze has burnt out all combustibles in the affected compartment, it fizzles out and the neighbouring compartments are saved.

·        Counter fire approach – Thisfollows setting up of a counter fire, so that when a fire is unapproachable for humans, a line is cleared of combustibles and manned.

·        One waits until the wildfire is near enough to be sucking oxygen towards it, and then all the people manning the line set fire to the line simultaneously.

·        The counter fire rushes towards the wildfire, leaving a stretch of burnt ground, as soon as the two fires meet, the blaze is extinguished.

·        Combination method – Thisis practiced in combination with fire lines and counter fire.

·        This is the most practical and most widely used, is to have enough people with leafy green boughs to beat the fire out.

Shortfalls in mitigating forest fires

·        In India Forest departments face a huge constraint of funds, major  amounts of funds are used for frivolous purposes like ‘planting forests’, instead of investing in mitigating infrastructures.

·        While communication and response time have been cut down, the actual numbers of Forest Department personnel that are sent to put out fires are woefully inadequate.

·        Contract fire fighters with inadequate training are recruited due to corrupt officials and political parties.

How mitigation efforts can be enhanced?

·        Respective Governments need to vastly increase the number of firefighters as well as equip them properly with adequate gears and other essentials.

·        Seasonal labour with adequate training can be contracted during the fire season to the fill gaps of fire fighters, Local villagers would be the best resource.

·        More Forest Department field staff could be hired to put out fires during the fire season and to patrol the forests during other times.

·        Recruitment of field staffs and investments in equipments must be done by discontinuing the claimed ‘forest plantations’, this would help rejuvenation of fire-stressed forest ecosystems.

·        Giving access to the public to reserve forests would have a salutary effect on the quality of life and the quality of field researchers available within the country.