Udhampur: According to the official sources, there was a raging fire in the Ramnagar forest division during the wee hours of Sunday. Fortunately, there has been no report of incidents resulting in anyone’s loss of life up to this point.
At the same time, another fire started in a forest on Gangera Hill, located in the Udhampur District of the Jammu and Kashmir region of India, on Sunday. When the information reached the forest department personnel, they got busier in putting off the fire on an immediate basis. Initial estimates made available by the forest authorities suggest that the fire has wrought tremendous devastation, burning wide hectares of the forest and costing as crores of rupees through destruction of forest goods like timber and loss of other resources.
Besides these mishaps, they added that the forest fire in the Daya Dhar of the Ghordi Block in Udhampur District has been burning for the last three days. The fire has continued to rage throughout this period, and even with more firefighting measures being made, the fire is not fully put out yet. The degree of damage to the Daya Dhar forest has already been reported, and the peacocks, who are inhabitants of this region, have not remained unaffected by this fire. The absence of vegetation has affected the peacocks, other animals, and the ecosystem’s structure in general.
It specifically deals with a critical issue of forest fires in the Udhampur district that has the potential to adversely affect the environment, wildlife, and people in the area. Several impacts arise from deforestation and the discharging of toxic chemicals into the environment, the top among them detailed below. Others include environmental degradation, extinction of wildlife, and disturbed natural habitats.
For some years, firefighters and other officials managing the forests have struggled a lot to control these fires, but the task has become more tasking due to rough terrains and rough weather conditions. The fires have caused the destruction of bio and plant resources and affected social communities living around those forests and rely on them for their resources. The smoke and pollutants emitted by the fires have caused additional drawbacks in minimizing air quality, impacting residents’ health in surrounding regions.
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