NILGIRIS : In an attempt to douse the fire that has gone out of control at Black Bridge reserve forest in Coonoor forest range since the last four days, an IAF helicopter started spraying water in the inaccessible area since Saturday afternoon.
The helicopter from the Air Force Station in Sulur took water from the Bhavani river as well as from the water sources in Coonoor and sprayed it at places in the Black Bridge reserve forest where fire raged. The helicopter has so far completed 40 sorties and the same work will commence again on Sunday morning.
Based on a request from the Nilgiris District Forest Officer (DFO) S Gowtham and collector P Aruna, the IAF deployed the helicopter.
According to D Venkatesh, Conservator of forest Nilgiris and Field Director of MTR, “The forest fire is getting intense day by day due to the presence of Chambrani trees as they are very old and most of them have dried and fallen. Although we deployed four tractors of water tankers from the nearby tea estate, we could not control the fire completely due to the slope of the terrain. The fire rapidly advanced uphill.”
More than 100 field-level staff from Nilgiris, Gudalur and Coimbatore forest divisions with the help of Fire and Rescue Service personnel are engaged in clearing the vegetation in the surroundings of the fire-raged area to prevent it from spreading further.
“Oil content is more in trees like Chambrani, Eucalyptus, pine and wattle. A large amount of the dry wood of Chambrani had accumulated on the forest floor as the forest comparatively has more trees of this type. As a result, the oil content added fuel to the fire, hastening the spread of the fire. Despite our efforts, the fire is out of control."
"The fire started in the reserve forest near the tea estate. Workers here had failed to douse the fire that was set by them as a part of maintenance activity,” explained Venkatesh. DFO Gowtham told TNIE that despite the IAF helicopter being used, the fire remains uncontained, and continuous actions are being taken to control it.