Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary closed

This refers to the Mudumalai National Park / Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamilnadu.

Just in case any IM'ers are planning on heading this way, I just got off the phone to a researcher working in Mudumalai who says the park is closed due to an estimated 50% of the sanctuary being on fire! (Apparantly set by arsonists).

Also see: http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/19/stor...1959100900.htm

I saw the article you linked to.

Horrified, though, to hear that there are major fires there.

Yes.. it is rather sad but somewhat inevetable at this time of year. On the plus side, it is also a bit of a cycle of nature, even though these have been started by humans. However, apparantly there have not been many fires in the last few years, so these ones are even more out of control!

They really lack any form of decent fire fighting other than just starting small controlled fires in advance of the main blaze to try and clear a fire corridor!

Hi Dacoit Chief,

but the papers said "chances of bushfires breaking out". Are there fires actually? Do you know more detailed facts.. where.. and how to keep track on the evolvement?

I am not too sure to be honest! I think the majority are out, but the park remains closed. I think my researchers report (50%) was a little exaggerated to be honest... to say the least!

There is a story in the paper about this today. Some arsonists were caught... though the story (and pic) is quite bizarre! Have a read: http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/24/stor...2455290800.htm

Are you worried as you are planning on visiting soon? If so, just keep an eye on Indian papers on the web (like the Hindu). Click on the Tamilnadu section (or specifically look for Udhagamandalam or Nilgiris). e.g. See the Udhagamandalam section of http://www.hindu.com/23hdline.htm

i am travelling to masinagudi in may.hope forest fires dont happen .Can i track the events on some site abt mudhumalai?

Todays papers report fires in forested areas of the Nilgiris, in particular the Lambs Rock forest area. I also read about Wayanad sanctuary being closed for the same reason.

This year is particularly bad even here in Bombay, where the Sanjay Gandhi NP and the adjacent Tungareshwar sanctuary had a spate of serious fires last week. The authorities say that these are intentionally done by potential land encroachers.

Last year there were huge fires on Holi day [tomorrow] at the Tansa Sanctuary near Bombay - caused by local tribals who wanted to clear the forest for farming.

How sad.. I read about it too!
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/10/stor...1050310300.htm

The Lambs Rock RF is just down the road from where I used to live. As far as I remember we have never had significant bush fires in this area as in my opinion the forest is very lush (and damp) around there. By contrast other areas in Coonoor such as Tiger Hill frequently get fires due to them being sparsly vegetated and mainly containing small bushes (mainly lentana, wattle and gorse).

Something must be very different this year.

In today's news: 200 tourists caught by fire near Coonor had to be led to safety. One lost his motor bike.

Wow.. I presume the others managed to carry theirs out!

I went through the karamadai-pillur-geddai-manjur-avalanche-ooty route last weekend .While we were there i observed smoke from pillur area.Most of roadside i observed was burnt to ashes.the entire way.really shocking.not anything like acres of land burnt but controlled burning to size of pavement.might be forest dept work to prevent accidental fire caused by traveller on roads.but i should say the area was real dry.it looked like there is impending calamity waiting to occur.i wouldnt really be surprised if there are more fires.locals attribute it failure of monsoon last year.anyway the bloody thing is it will destroy masinagudi trip unless rain comes in april end.

Fire clearing of roadside bushes should realy be done more often. Apparently something like 95% of bush fires originate within 5 metres of roads and other paths. Most of these are either beedie or bottle related. (Where discarded bottles become sun intensifiers)

Article on the recent forest fires in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve from the latest issue of Tehelka

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41....from_green.asp

One good News Snonymous..

It's raining a bit for past 2 days in Mysore and also in Coorg and even in ooty too. In Coorg, it's 10cms of rainfall day before yesterday [Nagarahole NP will be benefitted for sure] ..

Anyways Mudumalai NP is the one which will get closed to Water Scarcity every year and this time Wayanad NP and NAgarahole NP too had bush fires.

As per the change in weather for past 2 Days, "Bush Fire" Days might be over for this year !. Normally this spell will be around Dec / Jan timeframe which this time never took off due to which the problem prolonged in this region and now , Hopefuly things will be back to normal for Good !!

Velu

PMV
That is good news, and also what the Tehelka article expected - rains by end March, hope they last long enough but also without destroying any standing crops in the area.