Wildfires are gobbling up forests in Uttarakhand at an alarming rate, with 70 such conflagrations reported in the last one month.
Although the majority of bushfires have taken place in Garhwal this year, a huge patch of forest was destroyed in Kumaon’s Almora district in the second week of March.
Locals have accused the state government of failing to contain the blaze in several places, letting the flames spread to adjacent areas.
“No effort was made in the last 10 days to extinguish the fire in Almora. We live in the proximity of the forest and fear that it will soon reach our villages,” Amresh Sah, a resident, told reporters on Sunday.
Officials have blamed the surge in wildfires on scanty rainfall and snowfall in December and January that have turned forests into tinderboxes.
“The forests are dry and easily catch fire. Over 40 hectares of forest areas were destroyed in the state in the last 30 days,” said a forest official who didn’t want to be identified.
Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said he had instructed forest officials to take wildfires seriously and check them as soon as possible.
“They have been provided with equipment to control fire in our forests,” he said.
Uttarakhand has over 71 per cent forest cover. According to a report of the forest department, over 10,450 hectares of forest — equivalent to around 2,440 football fields — have been charred since 2020.
“We have been losing 1,743 hectares of forest every year because of wildfires. But the speed and intensity seem to have increased this year. Currently, there are reports of wildfires at 73 places in the state. We are trying our best to stop them,” said the forest official.
“Over 180 incidents of forest fire were reported in the state in February-March 2025, and we lost about 200 hectares of green belt during this period. This year, 73 wildfires so far have destroyed over 240 hectares of forest,” he said.