MoEF forms team to advise Odisha govt on dousing Simlipal forest fire and assess loss

With the Simlipal national park, one of India’s oldest protected forests, on fire for the past fortnight, the Union Environment Ministry on Wednesday formed an expert team that would work with the Odisha government to douse the fire and make an assessment of the loss.

The tiger reserve in the Mayurbhanj district has been burning since late February with the fire spreading to 8 out of 21 ranges of the park. According to the Forest Survey of India, there are more than 400 fire points in Simlipal.

The three-member committee headed by Amit Mallick, Inspector General of Forest at the National Tiger Conservation Authority, would assess the status of fire incidents in all the reserves forests in Odisha including Simlipal and provide technical advice to the State for containment, the Union Environment Ministry said in a statement.

The committee would also examine the status of loss of forest and wildlife in the tiger park and its relationship with poaching, if any.

Other two members of the panel are Subratt Mahapatra, deputy director general at the environment ministry’s regional office at Bhubaneswar and Arti Chaudhary from the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education.

A preliminary report from the central ministry blamed an early onset of heatwave for such a raging fire in Similipal.

"Since the heat wave started earlier and the Sal forests have already shed the leaf during last week of January, the vulnerability for forest fire has increased this year," it said.

A week ago, Baripada was the hottest station in Odisha as well as in India with the maximum temperature of 39.8 degrees Celsisus on March 2. A heat wave prevailed in Mayurbhanj district that recorded a maximum temperature of 38-39 degrees Celsius - an increase of 7 degrees Celsius from normal temperature.

"It's not Simlipal alone. Every forest in Odisha is on fire. A few days ago, I was on my way back from Kandhamal to Bhubaneswar and every forest that I saw on that 300 km road was on fire,” Odisha based wildlife conservationist Aditya Panda told DH.

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar announced formation of the expert panel after a group of Parliamentarians from Odisha met the minister seeking intervention. Two days ago, the Odisha government also formed an eight member committee for immediate containment and improving the SOPs for future.

"There is a well established SOP to prevent such forest fires and none of the two committees would teach anything new. Over the last 20 years, there is a decay in forest department institutions in Odisha and there is not much interest in conserving the forest,” said Panda.