Govt to establish Joint Control Rooms for Forest Fires

Jammu: Commissioner Secretary, Forest, Ecology & Environment Department, Sheetal Nanda, on Monday chaired a meeting to review the preparedness and action plan for forest fires management.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Suresh Gupta; Chief Wildlife Warden, Sarvesh Rai; Additional PCCF, T Rabi Kumar; Director, Forest Protection Force, Sandeep Kujur; Secretary in Forest Department, Pardeep Kumar; Chief Conservator of Forests, Jammu/Kashmir and other senior officers of the department attended the meeting.
The meeting had a detailed discussion on the prevailing scenario with regard to forest fires. It was informed that the Kashmir Division is prone to forest fires during March and April and less precipitation during the recent winters has increased the risk of these incidents. It was also revealed that in addition to natural reasons, the forest fires are also being caused by the unscrupulous elements. While the Department is taking preventive measures to mitigate these fires due to natural causes, it has also initiated action against the culprits who deliberately set forest fires. There are 8 FIRs lodged in this regard, and the investigation has been initiated by the Police Department.
During the presentation, it was noted that although forest fires affected a small percentage of the total forest area, with damage limited to ground fires and no major crown damage reported, the Forest Ecology & Environment Department team is actively engaged in controlling and preventing these fires.
It was mentioned that the forest fires in Jammu Division usually occur during the dry and hot season of April to June. The department has already initiated various preventive measures in this regard.
The Commissioner Secretary emphasized upon the department to shift focus from fire fighting to preventive management of the forest fires.
It was also informed that for structured response to the forest fires, a detailed SOP is being formulated which defines the criteria for categorization of low risk farm fires to high risk crown fires. The SOP also describes the preventive measures like creating fire breaks and control burns, preparedness through establishing fire response units, response protocols, use of technology, community engagements and awareness programmes. The SOP will notify the composition of fire response teams, fire fighting equipments of each unit as also the format for reporting mechanism for forest fires.
The Commissioner Secretary directed that SOP needs to be made more specific with heat maps based on the past fire incidents and exclusive KMZ mapping of fire lines.
It was decided that present practice of having multiple control rooms shall be dispensed with to ensure optimum utilization of resources. For this purpose, joint forest fire control rooms shall be established in vulnerable areas, after proper mapping with pooling of the trained staff from Territorial, Forest Protection Force, Wildlife Protection and other organizations which shall be equipped with all requisite fire fighting equipment.
The Commissioner Secretary directed for immediate notification of duty roasters, on this account, by the respective DFOs. He also asked for devising an interactive online reporting mechanism for forest fires for better coordination among all stakeholders. He directed the field agencies to launch aggressive IEC campaigns to sensitize the general public for achieving the desired objectives.