Despite repeated awareness programs, success in controlling fires has not been achieved due to consumer negligence and lack of equipment to extinguish them.
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Every year, the Division Forest Office, Community Forest Users Federation and other government and non-government organizations conduct awareness programs on fire control. This year too, such programs continued in various places.
Despite the awareness programs being conducted year after year, the fire is not under control in the district. This time, the fire started spreading from the second week of Chaitra before the summer season even started. The fire could not be brought under control because the consumers secretly set fire to the forest, saying that the Salli Kusum is a problem for walking, that green grass will provide food for livestock after it grows, and that the ash from the grass burning with the rain will be used as fertilizer in the fields.
Last year, a fire broke out in 1,409 hectares of forest in the district. The previous year, more than 3,000 hectares of forest were burned. This time, more than two dozen community and national forests in the district have already caught fire.
Fires are raging in various community forests of Sharda Municipality-1, 3, 4, and 11 wards of the district, some community forests of Bangad Kupinde Municipality, and some forests of Kalimati Rural Municipality-5 and 6. The fire in the forest has started increasing the heat and is also affecting the environment.
Nepali Army, police, armed forces, and local consumers are deployed to control the fire. In the absence of fire engines, they are forced to douse the fire with sticks. More than two dozen houses have burned down in a year. Sharda-11 Ward Chairman Rajesh Kumar Sharma said that the fire has been raging in the Chandreshwari Community Forest in Khairabang for three consecutive days and it is difficult to control it due to the strong winds.
He informed that the fire could have been started by a shepherd who went to the forest or someone else. Ward Chairman of Kalimati-7 Mitralal Rijal said that the fire has been raging in the community forest in his area for two weeks. Banke National Park is close to Kalimati-7. Wild animals keep coming to the settlement from the park. He said that local users also set fires to avoid the invasion of wild animals.
Ratna Bahadur Khadka of Bangad Kupinde-6 said that fires are occurring due to human negligence. According to him, some people secretly set fires because the roads become slippery when pine needles fall in summer. Since pine needles do not allow new grass to grow, they set fires for food.
Purushottam Bhattarai, District President of the Community Forest Users Federation, said that fires occur in the forest every year due to the negligence of users. He said that although efforts are being made to prevent fires from occurring in the forest, they have not been successful.
Tek Bahadur Rawal, Chief of the Division Forest Office, said that more fires occur due to human causes than natural ones. He informed that it is not clear who started the forest fire and no one has been arrested.
According to him, Kalimati Rural Municipality is the first to get a lot of fires, Bangad Kupinde Municipality is the second and Sharada Municipality is the third. District Police Information Officer Police Inspector Devraj Bhattarai said that even though the concerned bodies have been spreading awareness about fire control, it seems that consumers are active in setting fire to the forest due to petty interests.
