Forest Fires News

Roshan Lal, 66, is livid. He is yet to come to terms with the damage caused to a forest near his village, that caught fire on June 12. Lal, an…

Forest fires, also called wildfires and bush or vegetation fires, are described as uncontrolled, often widespread burning of plants in forests, grasslands, brushland, and tundra. These fires can be of…

The Palani Hills, located in the east of the Western Ghats, is about 80 km wide and 25 km long. Approximately 71 percent of the Palani Hills is covered by…

On March 27, the news of a forest fire at Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan in north-west came to light. By the time the news reached the concerned officials at…

In early 2002, Moirangthem Loiya Ngamba from the Meitei community in Manipur, began growing plants on the Maru Langol hill range nestled in the northern part of the Imphal valley.…

“I have never seen this kind of a forest fire before. This year, the fire entered our village, and I could see that it was just 100 meters away from…

As Similipal National Park and Tiger Reserve in Odisha burned over the past month, the debate over whether ownership of the park should be in the hands of the forest…

The recent Dzukou valley fire, which was doused after two weeks, has raised an alert for several groups of people – local inhabitants, tourists, stakeholders, environmentalists and more. The 80-90…

Forest land amounting to 43 million hectares, more than twice the size of the state of Karnataka, was cleared across the tropics and subtropics between 2004 and 2017, largely for commercial…

Colourful and delicate, butterflies are not only beautiful creatures, but also play an essential role in the food chain as well as being indicators of the ecosystem. Of late, butterfly…

"Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, Grow, grow.”  These words from the Talmud, a Jewish religious text, welcome the visitors at Dwarson, a…

While India talks about the impacts of developmental projects on biodiversity, an exotic plant with pretty flowers has diligently carved its way to degrade its forests. This plant, Lantana camara,…

On March 25, a few hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a country-wide lockdown to tackle the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, forest authorities in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh arrested…

From covering 640,819 square kilometres (19.49 percent) of India’s total land area in 1987 to covering 712,249 sq. km.  (21.67 percent) of the country’s geographical area in 2019, India’s forest…

It’s the forest fire season and the officials at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka have stepped up the ante on fire preparedness. With fire watchers assigned to look out…

A recent article in Mongabay-India about how to deal with forest fires in India argues that fire suppression should be replaced by fire prevention with the help of local communities.…

The fires raging across Australia from September 2019 and the ones in California in 2018 have brought global attention to wildfires in the recent years. Around 6.3 million hectares of…

Nearly 25 percent (one fourth) of India’s total land area is now under forest and tree cover. However, there is still a long way to go - more than a…

Aerial images taken last month in the southern part of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island show wildfires burning through peat forests and producing clouds of toxic smoke. The fires are deliberately set…

In 2016, the year when a heatwave in India took over a hundred lives, fatalities caused by heat/sun stroke were the second highest cause of “accidental deaths due to forces…