The forest fire in Uttarakhand became more severe and reached the High Court Colony in Nainital on Friday. According to a PTI report, within 24 hours, 31 new incidents of forest fires were reported from various parts of the state which destroyed 33.34 hectares of forest land.
On Friday, the fire that broke out near Nainital district headquarters took a horrific form, threatening the residents of the High Court Colony, located in the Pines area. This also affected the traffic movement in the area.
As per the report, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami asked the officials to remain on alert and take measures to prevent the fire by coordinating with all departments. Along with the forest department employees, army personnel also worked to control the fire. Authorities were set to deploy helicopters, as per the report. On Saturday, IANS reported, that Indian Air Force was helping with the fire extinguishing effort by using MI-17 helicopters to spray water.
CM Dhami while speaking to ANI said, "The forest fires are a challenge for us. This is a big fire. We are working for all the essential needs. We have asked for help from the Army... I am going to conduct a meeting in Haldwani today. We have conducted a meeting in Dehradun also regarding this. We will try to control the fire as soon as possible."
A resident of the area and assistant registrar of the High Court, Anil Joshi told PTI that “the fire engulfed an old vacant house located near The Pines”. He said that it had not caused any damage to the High Court Colony but reached dangerously close to the building adding that efforts were being made to control the fire since the evening.
The authorities were rushing to extinguish the fire as soon as possible as the fire was moving towards a sensitive area of the Indian Army, also located near the Pines.
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Nainital Divisional Forest Officer Chandrashekhar Joshi, while speaking to PTI, said, that 40 Manora Range personnel and two forest rangers to extinguish the fire. A daily bulletin issued on Friday by the Forest Department in Dehradun reported 26 incidents of forest fire in just the Kumaon region in 24 hours, while five incidents occurred in the Garhwal region.
Three Arrested For Starting The Fire
Three men were arrested on Friday after they were caught trying to set fire to the forests in two separate areas of the Rudraprayag district. Divisional Forest Officer Abhimanyu said, a sheep herder named Naresh Bhatt from Tadiyal village in the Jakholi area, confessed that he started the fire for fresh grass to grow in the area for his sheep to graze on.
He was booked under the Indian Forest Act, of 1927.
Meanwhile, two others, Hemant Singh and Bhagawati Lal were arrested from Dangwal village in similar circumstances, the DFO told PTI.
From November 1 last year till now, 575 incidents of forest fires have been reported in the state, affecting 689.89 hectares of forest area and costing the state more than Rs 14 lakh.