Forest Fires in India: Extent, Reasons and Impacts

As per State of Forests Report 2015, India has forest cover in more than 7 Lakh sq km area which is 21.34% of the total geographical area of the country. India has variety of dense forests in tropical south, Himalayan Mountains and the wet north-east regions. Forest vegetation ranges from tropical evergreen forests {Western Ghats / Eastern Himalayas) to alpine forests (Himalayas in north) to semi-evergreen, deciduous, sub-tropical broad-leaved hill forests, sub-tropical pine forests and sub-tropical montane temperate forests.

With a variety of forests, the forest fires also are common in India but usually they don’t get much coverage in media. Every year, close to 20,000 forest fire incidents are reported in India.

Large parts of India’s deciduous and semi-deciduous forests are characterised by forest fires. This is mainly because during the dry season, the forests shed their leaves and allow the development of fuel at the surface of forests.

Forests in India are also burnt for economic reasons. For example, Forest grazing is one of the important sources of income for many people. Burning of forests at the peak of dry seasons helps to stimulate grass growth before monsoon rains. This is one reason of intentional forest fires in some parts of India. Similarly, collection of non-wood forest products is also one of the reasons of burning. The surface fire would remove the litter and freshly fallen fruits would become visible to collect.

Major Wildfire Incidents in India in recent times

In 1995, around 3.75 Lakh hectares of area was affected in Uttarakhand (which was a region of Uttar Pradesh state then). In 1999, around 80,000 hectares of forest was destroyed in Ganga-Yamuna doab region, in 2008, the forest fires in Melghat in Maharashtra affected some 10,000 hectares of forests. In 2010, about 19,000 hectare forests were affected by Fire in Himachal Pradesh. Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are among the most forest fire affected states of India.

Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh Forest Fire 2016

In this summer, the pine forests of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh caught fire. Over 4,500 hectares was affected in Himachal Pradesh, some 40% more than the 3,185 hectares in Uttarakhand. As it got media attention, the entire government machinery came into action to control the fire anyhow. By May 2016, the fire had damaged around 3500 hectares of land and claimed at least seven human lives apart from loss of fauna and flora. Uttarakhand is known for human induced forest fires since long time. During British era, many a times forests were burnt to protest against British Government’s forestry policies and for independence. Most of the fires in Uttarakhand happen in the Chir pine (Pinus roxburghii) forests because leaves of this conifer tree catches fire easily, despite the fact that the Chir pine itself is resistant to the fire.

Reasons

The forest fires in Uttarakhand have been predominantly intentional for the purpose of collection of forest resources such as resin, sal seeds, honey, timber etc. People also burn the forests to improve grass growth, scare away the wild fauna, encroachment, accidental or other reasons. The forests are rich in Banj Oak trees which are source of some kind of resin. To collect resin easily, the surface fires are lit so that pine needles can be removed. Further, the forest fires are also ignited by smugglers to mask their operations. For example, the Tirumala Forest Fires were triggered by red sanders smugglers in Tirumala hills four years ago.

However, this year natural reasons (high temperatures, no atmospheric moisture and vapour pressure deficit) might have aggravated the problem. Some also link the forest fires to El Nino (which is usually used to explain almost every climatic problem in India). The logic behind El-Nino is that it has also resulted in high temperature and no rainfall and it also affected Indonesia badly in 2015.

Impacts of Forest Fires on Ecology and Biology

Forest fires cause serious health hazards by producing smoke and noxious gases such as Carbon Dioxide, Carbon monoxide, methane, hydrocarbons, nitric oxide and nitrous oxide that lead to serious consequences for local climate. Further impacts:

• Loss of timber, bio-diversity, loss of wildlife habitat, global warming, soil erosion, loss of fuel wood and fodder, damage to water and other natural resources, loss of natural regeneration
• Other losses due to these fires included loss of soil fertility, soil erosion, loss of employment, drying up of water resources, and loss of bio-diversity.
• Changes in microclimate of the region in the form of soil moisture balance and increased evaporation. The dense smoke from the fires affected visibility.

Policy Framework around Forest Fire Management

Forestry issues are in the concurrent list {transferred from the State List to the Concurrent List in 1976} of the constitution so both centre and state governments are enabled to legislate on these matters. While central government can make laws, implementation of these laws is with states. Due to this, prevention and mitigation of wildfires is primarily duty of the state governments while policy, planning and financing comes under Central Government.

In states, there are no separate departments for wildfires and the regular forest department staff carries out the activities of forest fire management. However, during the forest fire seasons, the state government recruit the fire watchers.

At central level, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Climate Change (MOEFCC) is responsible for forest conservation and protection. This ministry has a “Forest Protection Division” headed by Deputy Inspector General of Forests. The ministry had come up with a Modern Forest Fire Control Methods scheme in which the states are provided financial assistance for fire prevention and control.

Forest Fires and Community Involvement

The Joint Forest Management (JFM) Committees established at the village level are expected to involve people in forest protection and conservation. These committees have also been given responsibilities to protect the forests from fires. A revision of Modern Forest Fire Control is being envisaged in which the JFM would be made an integral part of the forest fire prevention strategy.

Research Issues

There is an urgent need to initiate the research in fire detection, suppression and fire ecology for better management of wildfires. One reason for need of original research is that such research conducted in western countries is not always suitable for Indian environment. Further, there is a need to establish a National Institute of Forest Fire Management with satellite centres in different parts of the country to bring the latest forest fire fighting technologies through proper research, training of personnel, and technology transfer on a long term basis.