NATURE ON FIRE

SHALI HEIGHTS IN FIRE ♨️

Yesterday Shali forest area caught on the fire Because of another human mistake. The Forest got in fire at 7pm and burned the one side of shali heights. The Forest remained in the fire for more than 6 hours due which one side of the shali heights completely burned into ashes .  

Smoking in forest isn't a good for  you  as you aren't harming your self but the nature, which is  most beautiful thing in this world.

Special request to each individual who soo ever goes to such places for tracking or campaign plz keep in mind you aren't harming the environment.

Over 30,000 forest fires were reported in India in 2019.

Around 95 percent of the forest fires in India are on account of human activity.

With wildfires in Australia and California gaining global attention in the past few years, forest fire management is in focus.

Experts recommend that fire management should focus on prevention not suppression and tribal communities with traditional knowledge should be roped in for effective management.

The fires raging across Australi

a from September 2019 and the ones in California in 2018 have brought global attention to wildfires in the recent years. Around 6.3 million hectares of forests in Australia and around 0.72 million hectares of forest and grass land in California were destroyed by fires.

Miles away, in India, wildfires have raged on in the past few years as well, causing extensive damage. In February 2018, it took five days and the mobilisation of huge resources including Indian Air Force choppers to douse the fire at Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. An estimated 4,800 hectares of forests were lost in the incident. The very next month, in March 2018, a group of trekkers got caught in a fatal wildfire at Theni, Tamil Nadu. The state went on to impose a ban on trekking in forests between February 15 to April 15, considered as fire season.

According to the India State of Forest Report 2019, over 30,000 incidents of forest fires were reported in India in 2019.

Additionally, more than 36 percent of Indian forest cover (657,000 sq km area) is prone to frequent forest fires and of this, 10 percent are highly prone, according to a Forest Survey of India (FSI) report on fire prone forest areas. Around 21 percent of the total forest cover is highly to extremely fire prone, adds the latest forest survey.

The dry deciduous forests, which receive low rainfall, face 5-6 dry months and have nutrient poor soil, such as those in tropical and subtropical latitude, are more vulnerable to fire compared to others. These areas are in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and in the southern states. Chir pine forests in hilly states are equally prone.

Most forest fires in India because of human activity

In India, fires are primarily caused by human activities, notes the FSI technical study, with over 95 percent of fire incidents of anthropogenic origin.

“People living in the vicinity of forests often intentionally ignite fires for inducing growth of grass for animal grazing or for crop rotation. This often helps to restore ecosystem, improve wildlife habitat, removes pests, diseased wood and invasive weeds. Sometimes, fire is used to clean the land to collect minor produce such as Mahua flowers (used to make beverage) easily. Such fires become uncontrollable sometimes,” Praveen Rao Koli, chief conservator of forests, Agra zone told Mongabay-India.

In parts of India where tendu leaves are part of the tribal economy, there are different reasons for setting fires. Virendra Tiwari, additional principal chief conservator of forests in the  Maharashtra Forest Department, said, “Collectors of tendu leaves often set fires in the summer months to promote a better flush of leaves. Forests are torched in revenge as well especially when people are evicted from forests or removed from daily wage work. Most of these fires are surface fires and easily manageable. Sometimes it goes out of hand.”

Some forest fires also start from natural causes like lightning and friction of dry bamboos.

“Fuel is the most important factor in wildfire. Dry leaves, weeds and bushes act as fuel in dry summer season. It is the responsibility of forest department to keep forest free from fuel before the fire season starts,” said Raman Sukumar, professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Meanwhile globally, as the frequency and severity of wildfires go up, climate change has been attributed as one of the reasons for aggravating fires.

According to a recent study by British scientists who reviewed 57 research papers, there is a link between climate change and increased frequency and severity of fire weather.

“Rising global temperatures, more frequent heatwaves and associated droughts in some regions increase the likelihood of wildfires by stimulating hot and dry conditions, promoting fire weather, which can be used as an overall measure of the impact of climate change on the risk of fires occurring,” states the report which underscores that human induced warming increases the fire risk.

The review found that fire weather seasons have lengthened globally between 1979 and 2013. Fire weather generally involves hot temperatures, low humidity, low rainfall in the preceding days and weeks, and windy conditions.

India is grappling with same climate conditions at present. The frequency and the area under concurrent drought and heatwaves is more in recent years (1981-2000) compared to an earlier time period (1951-1980) in India, a study stated.