As fires burn down Uttarakhand forests, pending petitions find mention in Supreme Court

NDRF personnel try to control a fire that broke out in the forest of Nainital district, on April 29, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI

Uttarakhand on April 29 reported 47 fresh cases of forest fires that gutted over 78 hectares of land in the hills and injured two persons.

Amidst the forest fires sweeping through the dense foliage in the mountains, a petitioner has made a special mention of the devastation in the Supreme Court and has sought an urgent listing of the matter.

“Forest fire petitions are pending in the courts for the last three years,” senior advocate Rajiv Dutta informed the bench comprising Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. The apex court said it will consider listing the matter and asked the advocate to send an email.

Anoop Nautiyal, a social worker and founder of Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, an NGO working for awareness on social issues, said it pains him to see forests getting burnt year after year.

“I fail to understand why it is so difficult to start working six months in advance from September [fires start February] to prevent forest fires. Around 50,000-plus hectares have been gutted since Uttarakhand became a state in 2000,” he said quoting numbers published in a Hindi newspaper.

Data, sourced from the State Forest Department, published on the SDC website shows that 54,801 hectares of forests were destroyed in fire in the state in 2018 followed by 2,981 hectares in 2019 and 172 hectares in 2020, the year when human movement in the hills was stopped due to Covid-19 protocols. In 2021, 3,576 hectares of forest cover was destroyed followed by 3,425 hectares in 2022.

Mr. Nautiyal said Uttarakhand is grappling with forest fire every year due to reduced rainfall and snowfall. He said forest fires are triggered by both humans and natural factors. “The government policies favouring the highly flammable pine over native species such as oak have intensified the problem,” he said.

The Hindu, on April 28, had published how fires since last Thursday gutted forests in the State. With the blaze reaching the vicinity of an Air Force Station near the Nanda range, the Indian Air Force on Saturday deployed an Mi-17 V5 helicopter to douse the fire using the Bambi Bucket.