Over 3.98 lakh forest fires were reported in India in the fire season from 2020-2021, more than double the number of blazes compared to the previous year, a government report said on Thursday.
The India State of Forests Report (ISFR) 2021 was released by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
It stated that as many as 3, 98,774 incidents of forest fire were detected by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) in the fire season between November 2020 and June 2021.
Between November 2019 and June 2020, the report said, 1, 46,920 forest fires were recorded.
Among states, the maximum number of fires was observed in Odisha at 51,968, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 47,795 and Chhattisgarh at 38,106.
Among districts, the maximum number of such incidents was observed in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra at 10,577, followed by Kandhamal in Odisha at 6,156 and Bijapur in Chhattisgarh at 5,499 incidents.
The total burnt forest area in India from November 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 has been assessed at 11,094 sq km which is 1.56 per cent of the total forest cover of the country, the report said.
“In India, severe fires occur in many forest types, particularly dried deciduous forest, while evergreen, semi evergreen and mountain temperature forests are comparatively less prone. More than 36 per cent of the country’s forest cover has been estimated to be prone to frequent forest fires. Currently, the FSI has been alerting state forest departments towards forest fire incidents at least six times in 24 hours,” it said.
According to the long-term trend analysis performed by the FSI, nearly 10.66 per cent area of forest cover in India is under extremely to very highly fire-prone zones.
The report said that states like Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur in north-eastern part of India exhibit the highest forest fire probability in terms of the frequency of event occurrence.
Parts of western Maharashtra, southern part of Chhattisgarh, central part of Odisha and few parts of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka showing patches of extremely and very highly fire-prone zones.
