Wildfires
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Context: Wildfires have been reported from the buffer zone of Silent Valley National Park apart from Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Attappadi Reserve Forest and Walayar Reserve Forest.
What causes the fire in forest?
- 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 membersto 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 which are strips kept clear of vegetation,help break the forest into compartments to prevent fires from spreading.
- This year, the forest department intensified its mitigation measures and formed a squad each for 21 rangesacross the five divisions to closely monitor the situation. 1,000 personnel, 250 forest guards were pressed into action.
- Awareness programmes are also being initiated at a community level to prevent such incidents.
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