BHUBANESWAR: As a wildfire continues to rage affecting Similipal National Park and forests in 26 districts, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday formed a nine-member state-level task force to effectively deal with the situation.
Former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force (HoFF) Sandeep Tripathi will head the task force which will review forest fire incidents on a daily basis, find the causes, and take immediate measures for containment. Acting PCCF and HoFF Jitendra Kumar will be the member convener of the task force, while PCCF (Wildlife) Shashi Paul will also be its member.
The task force also includes three experts from Dehradun and Hyderabad. They are Forest Survey of India (FSI) DG Pankaj Agrawal, a representative of DG Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) Dehradun, and Head of Forest and Ecology in National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) Hyderabad.
Odisha Space Applications Centre (ORSAC) CEO PK Mallik, Odisha Environment Society secretary JK Panigrahy and Bijay Agrawal from Baripada are also members of the task force.
As per the notification of the State Forest and Environment Department, the task force will suggest measures for augmentation of existing fire management protocols including a Geomatics-based fire alert system and recommend suggestions for improved community participation in fire management and prevention. It will also conduct a post-assessment of forest fire-affected areas, loss to wildlife, biodiversity and suggest appropriate measures for augmentation.
The task force has been assigned with the responsibility of improving the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the department for fire prevention and management in the State to prevent and restrain such fire occurrences in the wild.
Despite claiming to have put in place preventive measures, the State Forest Department has been struggling to prevent the growing number of forest fire incidents, especially in Similipal Tiger Reserve (SRT) where the new fire points are being detected by the FSI Fire Alarm System every day.
The FSI alarm system that had detected a whopping 918 forest fire incidents across Odisha including the STR on Sunday, sent an alert of 691 large fire events in different wildlife and territorial forest divisions of the state on Monday.
Meanwhile, PCCF in-charge Jitendra Kumar reiterated that the forest fire incidents are in control. He said that all the fire incidents in forests are ground fires and have not affected the large tree.