COIMBATORE : The threat of forest fires rises as summer nears. The personnel of the forest department, especially across Coimbatore and Nilgiris districts, are bracing up for danger as several patches in the forests have dried up even by the second week of February, thus raising a high risk.
The officials are expecting fires as the green patches inside the forest are drying fast. Starting from conservator of forest to the field staff are getting immediate forest fire alerts from Forest Survey of India (FSI) and they are on a high alert round the clock to prevent and control the forest fire as soon as possible and prevent the forests being destroyed and ensure free movement of wildlife.
S Ramasubramanian, Conservator of Forests, Coimbatore district, and Field Director of Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), said “We have registered with FSI. Even when a small forest fire is spotted anywhere in Coimbatore, Nilgiris and Dindigul districts we are getting an immediate alert on our phone. The satellite-based FSI alerts tagged with GPS location are helping us to a great extent in reaching the spot at the earliest and douse the fire on an immediate basis.”(A part of the ATR falls in the Dindigul district.)
Coimbatore Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) N Jayaraj said that they have deployed forest fire watchers and are carrying out maintenance works on 300 kilometres of fire lines to prevent the spread of wildfire. The latter work involves clearing of dried leaves, removal of weeds etc.
“We have procured new fire-fighting equipment like advanced sawdust blowers and the like. The personnel in each of the seven forest ranges are ready to use them whenever fire erupts,” said Jayaraj.
Their efforts are paying off with no forest fires reported in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Anamalai Tiger Reserve recently. Coimbatore and Gudalur forest divisions too escaped the calamity, though the Nilgiris forest division reported three instances of forest fires recently.
In Nilgiris district, three AI-based cameras were set up on the tri-junctions of MTR in December 2022. These help forest officials to get to know about the fire smoke for quite a distance. The alerts are received at the monitoring centre Theppakkadu.
D Venkatesh Field director of MTR told TNIE that there were no major fires except three minor forest fires within the Nilgiris forest division and that too was in less than one acre and was doused off immediately.
The fire inside the Nilgiris forest division spread from the nearby ‘patta’ land. We have already created a forest fire prevention line on the inter-state borders with Kerala and Karnataka as well as on both sides of the roads across MTR, Coonoor and Kotagiri.
“To provide water to wild animals we are filling water troughs once in three days both in the core and buffer zones. Based on the court order, TANGEDCO is releasing surplus water from Glenmorgan dam. The water flows through Kalahatty slope and reaches Vazhaithottam where animals like spotted deer, Sambar deer, gaur, elephants, and leopards arrive to quench their thirst,” Venkatesh said.