Over one lakh fires in forests from January to March: Why jungles are burning in India
Written by Shresta Dutt on April 13, 2022
A report published by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water has revealed that there has been a 10-fold increase in forest fires in the past two decades. It further added that rising temperatures and low humidity is the reason for the increase in blazes
Climate change is very real and it’s one of the major reasons why India has seen a significant rise in the incidence of forest fires.
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) had said that in the first three months of this year, there have been 1,36,604 fire points in the country, which have charred vast areas of forested land.
A study titled, ‘Managing Forest Fires in a Changing Climate’ by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), which was released on 8 April, found that there has been a 10-fold increase in forest fires in the past two decades, and that more than 62 per cent of Indian states are prone to high-intensity forest fires.
We take a look at the key findings of the report and how the report finds that drought couple with climate change is the reason for these blazes.
Forest fires in 2022
There have been multiple forest fires reported across Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan in the past month. Moreover, there were was also the fire at Odisha’s Similipal Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh’s Ladkui jungles in Sehore district and the forest areas of the Majhgawan region of Satna district and the Perimalmalai Peak near the Kodaikanal hills of Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul district.
The recent fire at Rajasthan’s Sariska Tiger Reserve was considered to have been unseasonal, with high temperatures exacerbating the spread of the fire.
For the unversed, it took around 400 people over six days to control the fire that had broken out at the tiger reserve in Rajasthan on 27 March.
In Uttarakhand, the incidents of forest fires in the past 10 days has doubled. A report in the Times of India said that there have been 313 forest fires from 1-10 April, gutting a total area of 374.79 hectares.
In Chhattisgarh the situation isn’t any better. There were 14,487 cases of forest fires in Chhattisgarh in March 2022. On 31 March alone, 1,571 active forest fires were reported in Chhattisgarh.
Forests in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka too witnessed a rise in forest fires. Across Madhya Pradesh, a total of 28,000 forest fires were reported in March.
