Greens seek action against foresters for Bandipur fire

MYSURU: Even as foresters are preparing to prevent fires in Bandipur and Nagarahole tiger reserves during summer, environmentalists have demanded action against foresters for the massive fire which destroyed thousands of acres of forests in Bandipur last year.
Wildlife activists led by Joseph Hoover demanded action against the foresters responsible for the fire. Activists have released the investigation report submitted by additional chief conservator of forests (legal cell) Hari Kumar Jha on the fire in BTR and submitted it to PCCF (HoFF) on March 21, 2019. After the fire was brought under control, PCCF (HoFF) Punati Sridhar on February 27 had instructed to carry out an investigation. Jha visited BTR four times alone and two times with chief conservator of forests (ICT) Bishwaji Mishra. "The fire devastated nearly 4,800 hectares of forest landscape," Hoover said.
The report claims that as per the report of National Remote Sensing Centre (ISRO) in Hyderabad, the estimated burnt area during forest fire in February 2019 is approximately 4,419.54 hectares. The fire was reported in BTR on February 21 and was completely doused by February 25. It was largely ground fire. The matter went up to the level of the chief minister and for the first time in the history, two IAF helicopters were pressed into service to douse the fire.
"The fire in the case is man-made and appears to be due to sabotage by some anti-social elements residing in adjoining areas and is certainly not because of any natural cause. This may be a fall-out of the routine regulatory duties carried out by the field officers as part of the enforcement of the rules and regulations with regard to forest and wildlife protection which may have adversely affected a few. A very high wind speed, high temperature, high moisture stress in vegetation etc have also contributed to the failure in timely controlling the forest fire," Jha says in the report.
During the inspection at GS Betta, Bandipur range, Maddur range and Moolehole range, Jha has noticed that the width of these fire lines was much less than 10 metres on both sides of the road. At a few of these places, it was hardly to 3 to 4 metres wide and some places fire lines were lesser than 3 metres and the fire lines were not completed by December-end. The officers were also found to have limited interaction with local people regarding fire prevention measures.
It is found that there has been a general slackness in supervision with regard to fire prevention measures. This is reflected in inadequate fire lines being made, fire lines with lesser widths, no scientific input with regard to fire line works, poor planning and implementation in fire prevention measures etc. Even the fire management plan which should have been finalized by August or September, was not finalized till the start of the fire season, Jha has mentioned in the report.