Forest ministry to come up with new playbook to fight forest fires as new season to begin

New Delhi: The ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) is planning to come up with a new forest fire mitigation playbook, including designing of forest fire equipment and customized machinery, two officials said.

Forest fires begin after the monsoon and picks during the summer months. The forest fire season begins in November and ends in June. India recorded about 203,000 incidents in the last forest fire season (2023-24).

More than 36% of forest cover is prone to frequent forest fires. 4% is extremely prone to fire, and 6% very highly fire prone, according to India State Forest Report 2019 by the Forest Survey of India (FSI). 

“Therefore, we are gearing up for the next season with better equipment and customized machinery because climate change may further increase challenges. Nobody knew that Delhi would experience such bad heatwaves that affect forests, taking away moisture and drying wood substances. When fire runs longer, animals have no option but to move away and if habitation is near, it may also lead to a human-animal conflict,” one of the officials said.

As part of the plan, the MoEFCC is holding a two-day workshop early next month in Bhopal where it will brainstorm ways to come up with response or mitigation tools.

“Through this workshop, we are bringing all stakeholders, including all state governments/UTs, potential industries, NITs and IITs under one roof. It’s kind of brainstorming. It is still at the ideation phase, but the concept is about designing forest fire equipment and customised machinery. This will be response tools. The exact titling is ongoing,” the other official said.

“Forest fire cases are falling. We had around 203,000 large forest fire cases (spread across 40 hectares) in the 2023-24 forest fire season against 204,000 cases a year ago. Our endeavour is to reduce it as much as possible. At the same time, we need to equip people with operational-friendly equipment. This is our broad idea. We will likely discuss existing inventory and their operational effectiveness, efficiency, user-friendliness and challenges and explore design, customization, new and modern equipment in the workshop,” the official added.

However, environmentalists say that forest fire cases, frequency, intensity and burnt area have been on an increasing trend for the past two decades and call for immediate action at various levels.

Queries sent on Tuesday to the secretary and spokesperson of MoEFCC remained unanswered at press time.

Every year large areas of forests are affected by fires of varying intensity and extent. Based on the forest inventory records, 54.40% of forests in India are exposed to occasional fires, 7.49% to moderately frequent fires and 2.40% to high incidence levels while 35.71% of India’s forests have not yet been exposed to fires of any real significance.

Forest fire needs to be understood from two perspectives–ecosystem and loss and damage. From the ecosystem perspective, forest fire is essential to available forest because in the forest, many trees evolve with fire and rely on it to regenerate. Occasional fires can keep down fuel loads that feed larger, more destructive conflagrations. 

“They also help forests to get rid of their natural wastes such as dry grass, tree needles, and thick bushes. Similarly, even for pests and diseases within the forest ecosystem, we need fire. So, fire to a certain extent is highly required for the survival of forests. If you completely remove forest fire, you will indirectly be taking off certain tress from the forest. Humans are not going and planting these trees. 

These are all planted by some animals or helped by nature in different ways like water, rain and fire. When fire lasts longer, it becomes a real challenge. Short fires are okay, but when they last longer and capture a larger area, it is serious. That’s when we have to response. The effort is to bring it down, the second official said.

‘Frequency, intensity increasing for the past twenty years’

“Frequency, intensity, number of forest fire and amount of burnt area have been increasing for the past twenty years. This is due to climate change. In some years, there might be lower number of cases and the next year it is more than the previous few years. So, the overall trend is increasing. In some ecosystems, forest fire is natural. Some forests require fire to regenerate, but majority of forest fire in India is triggered by human activities whether they have burnt it because of collection of tendu leaves (Indian Ebony used for wrapping bidi) or clear forest area. Post monsoon, from January onwards the forest is dry, the temperature is high, and the air temperature is high. Climate change is creating a perfect condition for forest fire and humans are the trigger,” said the founder-CEO of International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST) Chandra Bhushan.

“Forest fire causes air pollution, destruction of biodiversity, plant and animal lives, death of forest ranger, guard, local communities and tourists and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. Forest fire in Himalayas is now being linked to air pollution in Indo-Gangetic plains. Every tree you burn emits CO2. The impact is devastating.”

“In some cases, people burn forests for short-term economic gains. For example, ground clearance and bush firing is done for better tendu leaf collection. They do so for better leaves which can be rolled into bidis, but the long-term impact is devastating; it causes economic losses. The forest is destroyed, soil is degraded, and air pollution is there. In short, there could be some short-term economic gains but in the long run, it is an economic loss,” Bhushan said.

The annual losses from forest fires in India have been moderately estimated to be ₹440 crore. This estimate does not include the loss suffered in the form of biodiversity, nutrient and soil moisture and other intangible benefits. India witnessed the most severe forest fires in during the summer of 1995 in the hills of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh in northwest Himalaya. An area of 677,700 ha was affected by fires. The quantifiable timber loss was around ₹17.5 crore, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. The numbers and estimates may have gone up over the past two decades; the latest data was not found immediately.

What is to be done?

“There’s a lot to be done. One, some of the practices that are there for minor forest produce like using forest fire to collect minor forest produce need to be discouraged, communities need to be incentivized to ensure that those practices do not take place. Two, historically, communities have been engaged in forest fire control. We have close to 300 million people living in and around forests. So, we need to use the existing community to protect our forest and prevent forest fires. In short, we need to operationlise it, incentivise communities so that they can control forest fire, they can work with forest guards and forest officers to do this,” Bhushan suggested. 

“The third agenda is to provide enough resources for forest fire control to forest fire department which means satellite monitoring, early warning system, availability of forest fire control equipment, preparation before the forest fire season. Most importantly, not to promote monoculture. Most forest fires are intensive in plantations or forests where monoculture is done.”

FSI has been alerting state forest departments towards forest fire incidents detected by MODIS sensor on-board Aqua and Terra Satellite of NASA and SNPP- VIIRS sensor, six times in 24 hours, and alerts generated by FSI are based on Near Real Time fire point data processed by National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad.