Uttarakhand has recorded 375 forest fire incidents between February 15 and May 24 this year, affecting 319.67 hectares of forest land, officials said on Tuesday.
The annual forest fire season in the state begins on February 15.
According to official data, Chamoli emerged as the worst-affected district, reporting 133 incidents that damaged 67.29 hectares of forest area.
Pauri Garhwal recorded 42 incidents affecting 58.5 hectares, followed by Dehradun with 34 fires spread across 52.46 hectares.
Tehri Garhwal and Rudraprayag reported 42 and 37 incidents respectively, affecting 39.5 hectares and 25.02 hectares.
Other affected districts included Pithoragarh, which recorded 32 incidents affecting 28.25 hectares, Uttarkashi with 18 incidents covering 15.85 hectares, and Nainital, where 13 incidents affected 17.35 hectares.
Bageshwar reported nine incidents over 5.1 hectares, while Champawat recorded eight incidents affecting 6.05 hectares. Almora saw four incidents spread across 3.1 hectares and Udham Singh Nagar registered three incidents impacting 1.2 hectares.
Haridwar was the only district that reported no forest fire incidents during the period.
Speaking to PTI, Sushant Patnaik, Chief Conservator of Forests and Nodal Officer (Forest Fire), said the integration of resources and technology has strengthened the forest department’s firefighting capabilities.
Patnaik noted that data provided by the Forest Survey of India plays a key role in fire suppression operations.
The agency captures satellite imagery of active fires and relays the information to the forest department’s fire cell, which then forwards the coordinates to respective forest divisions for verification, enabling field teams to conduct targeted firefighting operations, he said.
To tackle the situation on the ground, the department has operationalised 1,438 crew stations and 40 control rooms across the state, besides setting up an integrated control and command centre at the forest headquarters, Patnaik said. He added that 5,600 fire watchers have also been deployed.
Patnaik said dry pine needles, locally known as “pirul”, remain a major fire hazard in Uttarakhand forests.
While 5,600 tonnes of “pirul” were collected during the previous fire season, the department has raised the collection target to 8,500 tonnes this year, he added.