Human action causes 55 wildfires

Report says 73% damage has been done in private and communal forests

PESHAWAR:

Around 210 wildfires have been reported in the mountain forests of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) since May 23 in which 55 were caused by human action and 12 were caused by natural causes, says a report of K-P Forest Department.

The department was unable to determine the causes of forest fire in 143 (68 per cent) cases.

Three people have lost their lives while trying to control the fire including a Rescue 1122 fireman Nizamullah in Shangla, Ahmadullah of Mohmand Rifles in Mohmand and community volunteer Satwal in Upper Kohistan.  Several others were left injured.

The report says that personal enmity could be involved in Shangla fire as rival often set the trees of the opponent groups on fire to inflict a financial damage on them. The report also catagorises the types of fires into ground, surface and crown fire.

Crown fires are those who engulf the entire trees while ground and surface fires remain on ground or limited to burning bushes. As per the report only four percent fires were crown fires which reached the trees and caused damages.

Around 55 per cent of the fire occurred on private lands and 13.3 per cent on communal land and 73 per cent damage has also occurred on either private or communal land. Similarly, 16.8 per cent (33 incidents) happened in protected forests and 10.2 per cent or 20 in reserved forests.

Read Fire ravages K-P mountain forests​​​​​​​

The report also mentions that climate change is the main reason behind the forest fires as in K-P in March the rainfall was 68 per cent less making it the 9th driest month since 1961.

The report also mentions that tourists visiting the forests are causing wild fires and burning the grass is also a traditional practice in the farming communities. Due to increase in population the demand for cultivated land has increased and fire is used to clear the land too in some parts.

Due to the 1992 floods, federal government has put a complete ban on the scientific harvesting of the timber, thus depriving the local communities of the only sources of income, it adds. In the past the forest department used ‘controlled fire’ methods in the forest but the practice was abandoned due to the closeness of these forests to population and this has increased the chances of forest fires manifold.