HYDERABAD: The California wildfires are burning again. With the death toll increasing to more than 70 and the number of people unaccounted for reaching more than 1,200, the inferno is one among the deadliest and most destructive in the State’s history. Unfortunately, the statistics hit right home, with Telangana housing some of the most fire-prone forests in the country.
As per a recent World Bank report titled ‘Strengthening forest fire management in India’, three of the top ten districts in India affected by forest fires are the erstwhile districts of Khammam, Warangal and Adilabad. The report claims that 4,191 sq km of forest area was affected due to fires in these three districts during the years 2003 to 2016.
The number of forest fires being detected through remote sensing in Telangana has been gradually increasing since the past few years. From just 609 forest fires being detected a decade ago in 2008, 1,512 forest fires were detected in the State last year, affecting as much as 6,225 sq km of the forest in the State. Hitherto this year, the number of forest fire incidents detected in the State is a massive 12,343.
Factors causing forest fires
Most forest fires in State are said to be caused by humans themselves. People often start fires in forests to make easier the collection of non-timber forest produces like the tendu leaves, used for manufacturing beedi, or for collecting the mahua fruit. In fact, the popular belief is that the fire improves the yield of the tendu plant. The fire, of course, often escalates beyond their control and turn into a fire engulfing the forests.
The fires in Telangana’s forests tend to spread through the ground and rarely engulfs entire trees like the California fires. However, even this ground fire is extremely dangerous for the State’s forest ecosystem, killing large number of species that dwell on the ground including small mammals. Such fires also destroy multiple food sources of these animals, thereby creating massive long-term adverse effects.
One of the reasons why fires are able to burn such large expanses of forests in Telangana is the nature of its forests. The State’s forests can be classified as ‘dry deciduous forests’. As per the forest department’s report, the leaves in the forests start drying up and falling on the ground during the months of January and February. Most of the fires are detected during the months of March and April, with the leaves posing as the inflammable material.