A forest fire in Makhniyal destroyed the house and other belongings of a family and 20 trees on Saturday.
The house owner named Naeem Abbasi said that he suffered a loss of Rs600,000. “I work at a tandoor. The fire has destroyed everything in my home.”
He claimed a fine of Rs3,000 is imposed on every house when a forest fire breaks out but when his house burned down, no one came to keep a check.
"I can't afford to build another house because the fire destroyed my one and only house", said Abbasi.
Meanwhile, the jungle fire in two days destroyed miles-long forests and killed rare species of animals and birds in the hilly areas of Gandkar Tehsil Ghazi.
The fire erupted in the forest due to unknown reasons, around several miles of forests on the hills of Gandkar along with the rare type of birds and animals have been burnt alive in the North of Haripur still waiting for KPK government to extinguish the fire. Locals told to media that besides the precious forests the fire also burnt the rare species of wildlife and their eggs including Grey Goral, Black Partridge, Grey Partridge, Chakur Partridge, See-see Partridge etc, in the breeding season.
Despite the efforts of locals to extinguish the fire, they failed and incredibly no provincial department has taken any step to cope with the catastrophe.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2022.
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