Simlipal reserve                                                                        Â
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Context: Simlipal reserve villagers vigilant as fire season approaches again.
Why Simlipal matters?
- The Simlipal reserve sprawls over 2,750 sq km and is home to three out of every four tigers in Odisha and 20 per cent of the state's elephant population.
- There are 68 villages within the reserve — mostly in the buffer zone — and about 1,200 on the periphery.
- It is a national park and a tiger reserve situated in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district.
- It was declared a biosphere reserve by the Government of India, and lies in the eastern end of the Eastern Ghats.
How fire prone is Simlipal forest?
- Generally, with the onset of summers and towards the end of autumn, the forest area remains vulnerable to forest fires.
- This duration coincides with the shedding of deciduous forests in the forest areas. The fallen leaves are more vulnerable to catching fire and facilitate the spreading of these forest fires quickly over the entire forest area.
- It is a recurrent annual phenomenon but brought under control due to short span of precipitation.
What causes the fire in Simlipal?
- Natural causes: lightening, soaring temperature, friction between dry leaves, etc. causes forest fires
- Anthropogenic causes:
- Poachers set a small patch of forest on fire to divert the wild animals which many times leads to such fires.
- Jungle areas are also set on fire by villagers to clear the dry leaves on the ground for easy collection of mahua flowers.
- Villagers burn patches of sal trees in the belief that it will lead to better growth when planted again.
How are these forest fires controlled and prevented?
- Forecasting fire-prone days and including community members to mitigate incidents of fire, creating fire lines, clearing sites of dried biomass, and crackdown on poachers are some of the methods to prevent fires.
- The forest fire lines are strips kept clear of vegetation, help break the forest into compartments to prevent fires from spreading.
- Awareness programmes are also being initiated at a community level to prevent such incidents.
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