Amateur trekkers, no guides: Why 10 died in Tamil Nadu forest fire

CHENNAI: R Vijayalakshmi remembers spotting the fire from less than 100 yards away. “Until the moment we saw it, we had no idea that there was a forest fire raging in the hills,” said the techie who works for IT firm Cognizant. She was part of the 24-member amateur trekking crew from Chennai which was caught in the forest fire on Kurangani hills in Theni district of Tamil Nadu.
“We had completed the uphill trek the previous day… At around 1pm, we had stopped to have lunch. We were already halfway through on the trek downhill,” she said. This is when the group noticed the fire at least 100 yards downhill, according to Vijayalakshmi.

Vijayalakshmi was lucky to have managed to escape with minor burn injuries, but many could not make it.

The rescue operation in Theni brought together various agencies such as police, revenue, forest and volunteer organisations. While all of them gave their best, S Jegadeesan, a 108 ambulance driver, played a crucial role in unravelling the magnitude of the calamity, which expedited the government machinery to jump into the rescue operation faster. Jegadeesan managed to reach the fire ravaged parts of Kolukkumalai near Kurangani. He shot videos of people waiting for rescue using his mobile phone and sent it to the authorities. Soon, the videos were telecast in TV channels too, forcing the authorities to swing into action.

Ironically, the trek was organised to “conquer” South India’s tallest peak to mark Women’s Day. But many things were wrong from the beginning. No pre-applied permission was obtained to enter the forest, no mention in the brochure that people will be trekking in forest area yet there were mention of plans to camp.

In the absence of a permission, they did not have forest watcher to guide them which means there was no one there who knew the terrain inside out. There was no doctor in the group though it was a mix of people — all women and children — who are not used to strenuous physical activity.

Poor planning, a casual approach to trekking in a forest area without a backup for an emergency including food, water and communication turned a happy trek into a disaster on Sunday. Though the forest fire was raging in the area since 11am, the team which trekked downhill for around 4km to 5km did not get a warning about it.