Jan 2: A year after 12,000 acres of forests in Bandipur went up in smoke, the Karnataka Forest Department is gearing up for the summer even as the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has cautioned that 22.78 lakh acres (9,222 sq km) or about 20% of the green cover spread across three districts in the central part of the state is fire-prone.
The FSI studied forest fire incidents across the country between 2004-05 and 2017 before coming up with state-specific inputs.
According to the 13-year observation, Karnataka has 7,352 “fire points” or areas measuring 5 km X 5 km with frequent fire incidents.
Though the number is lower compared to states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha with over 20,000 points, the sheer spread of the fire-prone area itself is a challenge for the Karnataka Forest Department.
According to data, about three lakh acres (1,199.9 sq km) of forest area is very highly fire prone with 26 to 52 fire incidents in 13 years. This is followed by 7.6 lakh acres (3,067 sq km) of “highly fire prone” areas with an average of one to two incidents every year.
Almost all of the “red alert” areas are concentrated in Uttara Kannada, Chikkmagaluru, Shivamogga and Chamarajanagar districts. As temperature rises at the end of January, so does the risk of forest fires, requiring officials to be on vigil till the end of summer.
After an investigation into the Bandipur blaze revealed that faulty fire lines and poor supervision were the reason for the spread of the fire, the department has come up with a multi-pronged approach to prevent similar incidents this year.
“After the Bandipur incident, we have created a fire cell and a standard operating procedure (SOP) which everyone has to follow. Firstly, a fire management plan is prepared and approved by a competent authority.
The SOP has well defined firelines which have to be executed by December-end and burning must be completed by January 15,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force) Punati Sridhar told DH.
He said that to ensure its strict implementation, GPS readings of firelines are to be submitted for random verification.
“All the required equipment from fire jackets to shoes, gloves, backpack sprayers and tractors mounted with 2,000-5,000 litre tanks with high pressure pumps will be deployed at vantage points,” he said.
In addition, the department’s fire cell works in collaboration with the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC) to give fire alerts within half and hour of an area catching fire and detected by satellites.
“Earlier, the gap used to be four hours by when the fire would have spread beyond control. Now, with reduced time gap, it would be easier to control fire early,” he added.
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After all these sufferings,it pains a section of us,common peole still support demonetisation !
What was supposed to be a surgical strike against tax cheats and counterfeit currency became an attack on a large informal economy that ran almost entirely on cash. The hardships caused by a shortage of new legal tender, and the rush to deposit old 500 and 1,000 rupee ($15.40) notes in bank accounts before the Dec. 31 deadline, took a heavy toll. More than 100 people died in bank and ATM queues, although it's impossible to confirm if the deaths from heart failure or exhaustion were directly a result of demonetization.
I Will donate one rope to hang him.
@Truth Teller - I share your views 100%
Honestly, i am not sure what is there to like about Congress! Besides all the scams running to several thousand crores and losing face in the international scene (thanks to Kalmadi) they have played religion & caste politics for decades for vote bank ruining the country. For the first time after independence perhaps there is some move towards honesty, improving infrastructure, education and cleanliness. Why some continue to hate Modi is just beyond me if you truly love this country. Rahul is bad news for India unless they find someone else who can be like Modi - hardworking & with a vision to change.
Honesty is incompatible with the amassing of a large fortune - Mahatma Gandhi
Modiji is the true and honest man after Gandhi
Demonetization in India was a war against dishonesty and it is a movement against corruption.This exercise has brought an awareness to the people not to make wealth dishonestly.Majority of the people wanted honest system in India and supported the Government's initiative on demonetization.
I am a hardworking sincere person. I earn for a living and to support my family, because of demonetization me and my family suffered without any cause. This man freezes our transactions to a minimum of 2000 and what not. Who was he to do it, By law it is not permissible unless a person is held guilty by law agencies.
Because of one man 100 innocent died standing in queue. How come once company made 160000 times profit during demonetization, Where is the black money, what happened to panama papers. These statistics have to shown after demonetization. Even now they are misleading crores of people with data not important to Aam Admi.
Dinesh Gundu will soon be under police custody
Nobel prize winner praised Modi for demonetisation and digital India and later he confessed he told wrong after knowing that Modi banned old 100&500 notes and implemented 2000 rupees notes..
I can say Modi is the best intelligent person in the world. And he should get business man of the year award.
Because,
1. Modi made huge benefit to Paytm (paytm ceo didnt do this much profit for his company)
2. Modi made profit to the private agency which made/maintaning aadhar things.
3. Modi made profit to Jio
4. Modi made profit to big companies by implementing demonetisation and GST (same time it affected badly on small scale retailer shop)
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