Forest Fires - Uttarakhand's Mid-Summer Nightmare

Aishah, I hope the fires will soon be extinguished. You know of my very real concern and experience at first hand here in Crete.

As I look out of my window I can see at least five places where there is evidence of forest fire, some of it started just a few minutes ago ... who did it??? I am sure no one knows ... the entire area is engulfed in smoke and haze, I can smell the burning leaves and trees here as I write this. It is still about a kilometer away but since there has been no rain for ages now it is likely to spread very fast all over the area which is dry as tinder and waiting for a spark to ignite. The Forest Department's fire fighting crew was patrolling late last evening and put off a couple of smaller fires but this one looks like a big one.

The forest fires are mostly started by villagers as they believe that after the fire, the grass come out very well and lush. The farm animals specially cows enjoy this delicacy. The other reason is that most of the uttrakhand has been forested by pine trees. Pine tree is a very dangerous tree for other vegetation and also contains flammable chemicals. The leafs of pine tree catch fire easily due to the chemicals.

even as I am posting this the fire has become a raging inferno the pine trees have all been tapped for tar and are burning quickly a wind that has sprung up is not helping the issue it has helped to spread the fire - the FD firefighting crew has arrived but can do nothing as there aren't enough men to contain the fire. Now it will rage on till it burns itself out probably after it has destroyed the entire area.
A lot of fires are started by the villager but not all some start through natural reasons ... a falling rock producing a spark is enough to light up a fire specially when the area is dry and covered with highly inflammable pine needles.

Your post reminds me of my time in the Blue Mountains where we fought over the period of my living there, three major fires which threatened our home. I do hope you are in no danger, liveinhimalayas? My thoughts are with you.
We are so at the mercy of the winds in these incidences - once fire takes hold the wind will direct which direction it goes in. One time fire was at our lower boundary in a straight line up to our house but miraculously the wind changed at that moment and it went off in another direction. Fire fighters have a hard job in these circumstances. We had a good firebreak around our home, but even so windborn sparks etc. can set up spot fires.
All the best liveinhimalayas.

the forest in uttarakhand are engulfed with the devastating fire , that has ruined the natural beauty of the hills over here, for which chamoli is well known.. all around one can see only smoke and smoke.. the forest deptt should come out with the possible measures to tackle the problem, otherwise this will make the things even worst in the near future.. first impact will be climatic change.. that we are seeing these days, and the other will be our wild life in danger.. so could one suggest few of the things that may be taken care of for handling such kind of situation ???
comments invited

Thank you Aishah for your prayers, they were answered and our site was spared the wind directed the fire away from us. the fire is still burning and is not likely to go out until it rains. There is thick haze of smoke all around I can barely see the far hill today. As we were driving up the hill from our rented accommodation to the site in the morning we noticed a small fire that had just been started by a spark by the side of the road, we passed it and by the time we reached the point in the road directly above the place where we had seen the fire, it had turned into a huge inferno and threatened to burn down a hut in the army camp which is situated there. We stopped to alert the people and saw flames several feet high this within a few minutes. Thankfully there were enough men there to fight the fire and control it.
We drove through what seemed like a hellish scene ... the forest that was so green yesterday is gone, all the the undergrowth is gone and all that is left is black soot and ash. Pretty desolate ....

I am glad to know that at least some of the forest fires have now been extinguished. You are in my thoughts. Arson here in Greece is very commonplace and because of it we are now volunteer firefighters who need to patrol our forest every night during summer, especially when there is meltemi wind blowing. It is frightening and the worst part is that mostly the perpetrators of these acts are left to do it again. And then they are wondering about climate change. With no forests left, of course there are landslides and flooding.

After reading the posts, it seems like the situation is serious, not surprising as this year the rains have been little and snowfall even less. I had worked in hills of uttrakhand as part of organic and herbal cultivation awareness programmes long time back. I was strictly against the large scale forestation of pine trees and when I used to talk to the officials about the need for multiple varieties of trees wherever the plantations are being done, they just shrugged it off, maybe because pine was required for industrial chemicals and the environment took the backseat.

This is very interesting Jitu, specially to me as this is exactly what my husband and I feel - that the diversity of the forests is gone and so has that of its fauna ... I wish the policy makers would pay more attention to nature than what they think is better ... hasn't it been proved time and time again that nature is hte best guide??
The FD is planting other trees now at least here where I live ... they have gone back to the traditional mixed forest after the devastating result of planting only pines ... they planted cinnamon, walnut, cedar, spruce etc and no pines ... a small success but the forest fires fed by the pine needles see to it that little of species survive. While other plants die in forest fires, the pines seem to survive and come back stronger ...

As jituyadav comments, destruction of forest is quite "convenient" for some people

Nice, the empathy is mutual - Crikey what a tribulation you have to do – Over here so many of the fires are extremely difficult to get to, higher up the mountainsides, slippery, rockfall and so on....

Arson is incredibly difficult to understand, even though we know about the Pyromaniacs, do they really get a hard on causing such damage? There will always be such individuals seemingly incapable of creating, yet bent on destroying – and we are all held ransom to this lot, in whatever guise they go forth, it is our enduring predicament.

Would you believe that I know exactly what guise they go forth in? Here in Crete the arsonists are burning forests so that they will get planning permission to build and it is the same story in Athens and in the Peloponese. That huge "accident" that took place near to Kalamata cleared the trees away ready for the forthcoming motorway.

It is tragic.

It is and Yeah we do know the destroyers, Burning, Chopping, Looting - and as you say this nexus of development lust fuels their actions, for more bloody highways in your region, what to say! For one reason or another, it matters not, there is a fire burning in their minds and they need to manifest it, rather than control themselves... On a compassionate level i can’t really blame them, as intolerable as it is - if everyone is chasing after some sort of personal benefit or thing –

Another perception is that this lot are basically Asura's. Certainly some of the Vedic asuras were quite evil, and at times, they were even more powerful entities than deva's meaning shining one’s, forcing them to flee in the face of their power until some way of dealing with them could be found – the search goes on...

But we should blame them! And those very people, once they have built their own home, will be the first to talk of forest protection.

The other kind of arsonists are the goat farmers. They are hoping to change the vegetation by burning in order to find better pasturage for their animals.

And then there are the lunatics who want to hear sirens.

I know of all three categories living in our neighbourhood. It does not make for pleasant dreams. But the best we can do here is to organize ourselves on a local level, take responsibility for our own forest, patrol it ourselves, learn how to fight fires, install fire hydrants, educate people about the risks.