Shib Shankar Goswami, a teacher at St Xavier’s School, Hazaribagh, was travelling to Koderma via NH 33 when he spotted flames engulfing the trees of Canary Hills, a famous tourist spot of the district, on Sunday evening.

Goswami, an avid bird watcher, immediately alerted senior forest officer Pyarelal Saw about the fire. The officer immediately sprung into action. He formed a team of six forest officials and reached the spot identified by the school teacher. The team led by Saw took 45 minutes to put out the wildfire. He confirmed the gutting of bushes and small plants. Terming the incident as unfortunate, he blamed the smokers for causing the mishap.

Talking to The Telegraph Online, Pyarelal said, “We had to scale the hill to reach the spot. After dousing the flames, we had to go climb up to its peak once again to control the fire,” he added. According to him smokers climb up the hill, throw cigarette butts without extinguishing it. Given the fact that around this time a lot of trees shed their leaves, such acts of carelessness lead to such fires.

The team of six forest department officials who doused the flames on Canary Hill. Picture by Vishvendu Jaipuriar

“The Canary Hill is not a property of the forest department but that of the local people. They need to care for this place. No town can boast of such a picturesque natural beauty in its area,” claimed Pyarelal.

He also said that people should avoid going on top of the hill with matchsticks. “I have asked the caretakers to ensure that people going on the peak should not carry matchsticks with them,” he added.

Goswami said people coming here should realise that a small mistake of theirs can cause a big damage to this hill. “I felt deep pain on seeing the flames engulfing trees at the peak of Canary Hill,” he said.

Other than Pyarelal, the team that reached the spot comprised - Anil Kumar, Subodh Kumar, Jaipal, Ramchandra and Sanjay Kumar.