BHUBANESWAR: Odisha on Thursday witnessed a further rise in wildfires across its forests even as a Central team headed for Similipal to take stock of the situation in the tiger reserve where the State government claims to have brought the situation under control.
The satellite-based fire alarm system of the Forest Survey of India (FSI) detected 1,048 fire points across the State on the day as compared to 497 points on Wednesday. Apart from Similipal, wildfires have engulfed other forests including the ones in Swabhiman Anchal of Malkangiri where forest staff and fire fighters are being ferried in boats to douse the flames.
However, head of the State-level task force on forest fire management and former PCCF Sandeep Tripathy said only 597 of the total fire points are in forests. He added that forest fires have come down to a significant level in Similipal biosphere where only two fire points were detected against 24 on Wednesday.
“The integrated approach of the State government has led to containment of fire in Similipal and other parts of the State. Parts of Similipal also experienced rain which is expected to prevent any further proliferation of fire in the tiger reserve,” Tripathi said and added that prediction of intermittent rain by the IMD for next three days will also help preventing flare ups in the State to a large extent.
Meanwhile, two members of the three-member Central team formed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), headed to Similipal from Bhubaneswar to take stock of the situation.
The members include National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) IG (forest) Amit Mallick and Deputy Director General ofMoEF&CC regional office Subrat Mohapatra. The team was accompanied by the divisional forest officer of Karanjia. The team has been assigned to camp in State till the forest fires are brought under complete control.
Head of Silviculture, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), Arti Chaudhary, another member of the team, will join soon as fire expert. While cancelling leaves of all forest officials, the State government has deployed eight rapid action force units including four in Similipal to control forest fires. Task force members said the State is on full alert to combat any recurrence of fire incidents in the coming days.