The Chandaka-Dampara Wildlife Sanctuary

Bhubaneswar, April 21: Rising mercury level has forced the Chandaka forest division to adopt precautionary measures to prevent incidents of fire in the forest areas. The forest, spread over 193sqkm, has so far witnessed two minor fires this summer.

A fire protection team, comprising 20 members, has been constituted to keep an eye on the forest during the summer. Besides, water tankers are being deployed in the forest to prevent fire from spreading. An official said around 20 water tankers had been kept ready in various beats to tackle fire.

“We have deployed our men at the ten watch towers inside the forest area to keep an eye on the forest. They have also been provided with walkie-talkies to report any fire incidents immediately. Apart from this, we have set up fire lines in the forest to prevent fire from spreading,” said assistant conservator of forests Sasmita Lenka.

A fire line is prepared by a controlled burn of dry plants and dry leafs which cuts off the fuel source of the larger fire, thus preventing its spread. Two minor fires had broken out in the forest division at Bharatpur on April 19 and in Dampada in first week of this month. On both the occasions, the forest officials took the help of fire tenders to douse the flames.

Another official said that most of the times, forest fires were caused artificially by the forest dwellers. “Most of the time, lack of awareness of forest dwellers leads to forest fire. So, we are conducting frequent awareness drives,” said a forest official.

The Chandaka forest has as many as five villages.

As the Chandaka forest is covered by bamboo trees, friction between bamboo canes can also lead to a fire breakout during summer.

Besides, the presence of bushes in the forest also makes it vulnerable to such mishaps. Temperature of the city has already crossed the 40°C mark this summer and there are chances that it would increase further.

Huge tracts of forests were destroyed due to fire in Chandaka forest division last summer. The situation had even worsened as hundreds of non-gazetted forest officials across the state were on a strike then.