Mi-17s, NDRF battle to tame raging inferno

Seven persons are reported to have died in the fire.

Nearly 10 districts are bearing the brunt of the forest inferno with Pauri, Nainital, Tehri and Chamoli among the worst affected. Pauri tops the list, with a total of 263 fire incidents, followed by Nainital with 135.

The forest department on Sunday deployed Mi-17 helicopters of the Indian Air Force to douse the fire in Kumaon region. The helicopter carried water from Bhimtal lake and tried to control the alarming situation via artificial rain. A team of 40 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) jawans reached Almora on Sunday to arrest the spread of forest fire to sensitive areas.

In the worst affected Pauri district, the choppers could not be deployed due to lack of visibility caused by heavy smoke emanating from the forests. With six national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, Uttarakhand has a huge forest cover. The forest fires have broken out just as the state began the countdown for this year’s annual Char Dham pilgrimage.

As per the Uttarakhand forest department, till Sunday, an estimated 2269.29 hectare area of land has been gutted by the forest fire raging across the state.

On Sunday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh held discussions with the Chief Secretary and other officials of the state government and offered all possible assistance from the Centre. The Home Minister had on Saturday spoken to Governor KK Paul, who briefed him about the situation in the hill state.

State deputy Chief Secretary S Ramaswamy chaired a meeting with senior state forest officers on Sunday in the state capital, to take stock of the situation. 40 master control rooms and 1166 fire-extinguisher teams have been set-up in sensitive locations of the state for speedy action. Nearly 14,000 villagers have been trained to put out the flames and conduct rescue operations. A team of State Disaster Relief Force and three teams of NDRF were sent to Nainital, Almora, Gauchar and Pauri. No fresh fire incident was reported on Sunday in any part of this hill state.

Nearly 500 fire-fighting personnel have been stationed at dangerous zones of the city and remote areas as a precautionary measure to mitigate damage to forest wealth. DMs of all 13 districts have been instructed to pull out all stops to preserve precious forest wealth. 100 Prantiya Rakshak Dal (PRD) will take the lead in fire-fighting efforts. Van Panchayats would soon get Rs 5 crore assistance for buying fire-fighting equipment from SDRF fund.

There have been 603 fire incidents in Garhwal region, 318 in Kumaon and 161 in the wildlife region; taking the total fire incidents in the state since early February to 1082.