Forest personnel too slow to act, says Volunteers

Chamarajnagar: The Bandipur forest fire could have been fought much more successfully if forest officials had acted faster on tip-offs and stopped it from spreading from the Kundakere range of the national park, where it was first noticed, to other sections, claim volunteers helping to fight it for the last few days.

Pointing out that the fire eventually spread to the park’s Golpalaswamy Betta and Moolehole ranges, before reaching the Wyanad forests in neighbouring Kerala, the volunteers say they had alerted the Kundakere forest officials about the fire when it first started four days ago, but they were too slow to act.

A volunteer, who is also a researcher on climatic change from the University of Mysore’s department of geology, Nagarajun Kumar, says the  forest staff could have created a counter fire line to combat the fire.

“The “D” line should  have been created between different ranges of the park, but nothing was done and this contributed to the spread of the fire in Bandipur,” he said, speaking to Deccan Chronicle.

“The fire in the Shivapura area of the Kundakere range spread fast to Melkammanahalli gate and the Gopalaswamy Betta, destroying huge tracts of forests. Had the officials acted fast, it would have taken a mere five hours to douse the fire with the help of about 200 forest staff. But there was no planned effort,” he regretted.

Mr Kumar estimates that about one lakh  acres of forests  have been destroyed by the fire in Bandipur, which is a part of the Nilgiris biosphere. “But the officials concerned are taking into account only the loss in the core area of the national park and not its entire spread,” he added.