BHUBANESWAR: With winter on its way out, the Forest Department has mobilised every resource to ensure that Similipal Tiger Reserve and other forest and wildlife habitats do not see a recurrence of last year’s raging inferno that had grabbed national headlines.
District-level action plans have been laid out for 23 districts and GPS mapping of vulnerable points conducted. As the State Government has adopted the Forest Fire Free (3F) strategy this year for every panchayat, emphasis is on maintaining fire lines and reaching out to fringe villages around forests.
To overcome the problems of poor funding, the department has made a provision of around `30 crore from State resources and CAMPA funds to tackle wildfire hazards in Similipal and other forests this year, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force (HoFF) Sisir Kumar Ratho told The New Indian Express.
STR had faced manpower problems due to a slash in funding under Project Tiger for 2021-22 fiscal and the national park reported 428 fire points between January 1 and March 4 last year. The Centre under the scheme sanctioned only Rs 3.54 crore against the proposed estimates of `16.04 crore for Similipal in 2021-22.
As per statistics of Forest Survey of India (FSI), the State has, so far, reported around 729 forest fires since January 1, about 1,300 less than the corresponding period of 2021. The PCCF said situation is well within control as forest fire incidents have not even crossed the threshold of 1,000 this season.
The STR management is leaving nothing to chance. More than 2,000 firelines have already been created, while around 700 fringe villages have been identified in Baripada, Karanjia and Rairangpur divisions where awareness drives are being carried out to tackle the menace.
Around 150 fire squads, 550 protection assistants and 200 field staff of the department have been mobilised while 400 fire blowers kept in readiness to tackle forest fires in STR, Deputy Director of STR Sai Kiran informed. Forest department sources said, only 12 forest fire points have been detected in Baripada circle so far since the beginning of the fire season this year against 244 last year.