IAF helicopters help contain forest fire in Arunachal’s East Siang, drop 1.62 lakh litres of water

Itanagar: The Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters conducted a four-day operation to help contain a forest fire in Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district, carrying out 54 sorties and dropping around 1.62 lakh litres of water over affected forest areas and nearby settlements, officials said on Thursday.

The firefighting operation began on March 8 after the East Siang district administration reported the spread of the forest fire in Mebo circle and sought helicopter support.

Following the request, the state civil aviation department approached the Defence ministry and the Eastern Air Command, after which the IAF launched the operation, starting with aerial reconnaissance of the fire-hit areas and trial lifting of water before undertaking full-scale dousing efforts.

During the operation, helicopters lifted water from the Siang River and dropped it over interior forest areas as well as locations close to human settlements, a press statement by state disaster management secretary Dani Sulu said.

The operation, which ended on Thursday, was supported on the ground by teams from the district administration, the incident command unit at Mebo, the state civil aviation department, fire and emergency services, the disaster management and personnel from the nearby Sigar Military station.

Firefighting teams from neighbouring districts, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), personnel from Assam fire and emergency services, along with Aapda Mitras, community volunteers and villagers led by gaon buras also joined the effort to prevent the fire from spreading to inhabited areas.

An additional team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was requisitioned on March 10 as a precautionary measure in case the situation worsened.

Officials said the forest fire affected around 140 hectares of reserve forest and nearly 200 hectares of community forest, agricultural and horticultural land in Sigar, Ralling and Mebo areas under the Mebo sub-division.

However, no human casualties or livestock losses have been reported.

Authorities said the fire has been brought under control to a large extent following the combined efforts of multiple agencies and heavy rainfall in East Siang on Wednesday night.