Chamarajanagar: Wildfire at Bandipur – 3,000 hectares of forest land destroyed
25 February 2019
Published by https://www.daijiworld.com/
INDIA: Chamarajanagar. A major wildfire reduced close to 3,000 hectares of forest in Bandipur Tiger Reserve to ashes in the last three days. It has become a challenge for Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) to extinguish the fire.
Showing no signs of abating even after three days, the raging wildfire is spreading fast into other ranges of the tiger reserve even as the department is making appeals to the public for support to contain the fire.
The fire in the Kundakere range of the reserve was dismissed as a stray case initially, but it went on to burn the thick dry-deciduous forest in Bandipur, Gopalaswamy Betta ranges and parts of the Kullana Betta areas of Bandipur covering a length of about 20 kilometers.
The intensity of the fire huge and Bandipur-Ooty highway was closed for over four hours considering the safety of travelers. Even on late Sunday, personnel from the forest department assisted by volunteers and fire service brigade struggled hard to contain the fire close to Tiger Road area of the reserve.
Previously, Bandipur had witnessed major fires in 2012 (1,000 hectares), 2017 (2,000 hectares) and a young forest guard Murigeppa Tammangol had lost his life while trying to douse the fire.
Acknowledging the fire incident, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy tweeted: “I am deeply pained by what is happening in Bandipur. We are closely monitoring the forest fire in the region. Forest minister is overseeing the preventive action and forest officials, fire service personnel are trying to contain the fire.”
Forest minister Sathish Jarkiholi visited the fire spot close to Tiger Road along with the top officials of the KFD. Later he said “We have lost about 2,500 hectares of forest due to the fire. Our objective is to first control the fire and subsequently we will ascertain the extent of damage. At the outset it appears to be an act of sabotage and one person has been detained for interrogation.”
Failing to anticipate and understand the gravity of the situation, KFD officials drew flak from volunteers on social media as well as in Bandipur.
KFD had appealed to the public for volunteer support. According to an official in Bandipur, about 100 volunteers had reported on Sunday and several others supplied water bottles and packed food for the personnel, who were toiling day and night to contain the fire.
