Worried over the rising incidents of forest fires in Uttarakhand, the Indian Air Force in Nainital took to helicopter bambi bucket operation on Saturday to douse blazing inferno in the hills surrounding cantonment area. The Uttarakhand government has also sought support from the Indian army to battle the forest fire crisis.
“Forest fires are a big challenge for us. Fire incidents are rising continuously. We are persistently trying to tackle it with all our existing resources. However, additional support has been sought from the Indian Army. Indian Air Force helicopters are also employed for aerial firefighting. Our entire effort is ro bring the forest fire under control,” said Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
Seeing the blaze moving towards the Bhowali based Indian Air Force station area, the IAF began its aerial fire fighting, pouring water streams over the affected areas. An Air Force helicopter deployed for the task took water from the nearby Bhimtal lake to pour it over the affected forest areas to prevent it from coming towards the base area.
The raging inferno spread over around 700 hectares of forest cover by Friday. “Forest fire affected areas in Kumaon are mainly lower parts of Nainital town, Haldwani forest areas and Champawat districts. It’s indeed a big challenge for the past 10-12 days but we are trying our best to tackle the situation,” said PK Patro, Chief Conservator of Forest, Kumaon.
Patro informed the department has resorted to its every means to bring raging forest fire under control. Besides fire tenders, we have also called for additional manpower from Home Guard and state police. All DFOs in Kumaon have been asked to be on alert mode on rising forest fire incidents in the region. We hope a small shower will also help us in a couple of days,” added Patro.