Karnataka: Lack of protective gear puts forest guards’ lives at risk

Poor allocation of funds by the state government in providing advanced equipment for forest personnel to fight forest fires is putting the lives of the guards at risk.

While the five tiger reserves in Karnataka, on paper, receives a ‘satisfactory’ amount of Rs 2.5 crore each annually from the central government to prevent forest fire by creating fire lines, hiring watchers and procurement of safety gear, the remaining 30 forest divisions receive Rs 8 crore from state government and Rs 2 crore from central government for procurement of safety gears for hundreds of permanent staff and remuneration for contractual staff, who are hired during the fire season.

“It’s peanuts,” says a senior forest officer, on the condition of anonymity, on the funds allocated for providing safety to the forest guards. “Poor allocation of funds has resulted in stalling of modernisation of fire fighting equipment,” the officer said.

“Several written representations had been made to the state government requesting a hike in the budget for providing protective gear for guards, yet, the response from successive governments has been poor,” the officer lamented.

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Officials say the department requires an additional Rs 5 crore to Rs 6 crore annually to procure safety gear and train the guards.

In the last 10 years, the Karnataka forest department has lost 19 forest personnel while on duty and majority of whom were forest guards, watchers and contract labourers. Of the 19 fatalities, 17 died in animal attacks. Sundaresh (37), a forest guard in Sakleshpur and Murigeppa Tammangol (27), a forest guard at Kalkere range of Bandipur National Park died in fire accidents.

“In 2017, Murigeppa and I were using branches of a tree to douse the fire and unfortunately he died as he fainted due to suffocation while fighting the fire. And even today if there is a fire in my range, I rush to the spot without any safety gear and use the tree branches to put off the fire,” said a forest guard who survived the fire incident six years ago.

The only modernisation in the forest department with respect to firefighting is providing blowers to the guards. However, this equipment is mostly available with guards in tiger reserves and not in other divisions.

Several forest guards that DH interacted with said they need fire-resistant suits, masks, boots and modern tools that help them to douse the fire safely. “Blowers have limited scope. They can, to a certain extent, fight the ground fire. But for crown fire (fire in the canopy) we need advanced tools to fight,” said a Deputy Range Forest Officer in Kali Tiger Reserve.

Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Forest Resources Management) Vanashree Singh said Karnataka has been using advanced technology, including fire alerts from the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre, Information & Communication Technology wing of the department and quick response team, to address the critical fire issues on a real-time basis.

“Based on the limited funds, we have provided funds to the divisional-level to procure safety gear for the guards. We need to do more for the guards,” she said.