KP govt to constitute local committees to curb forest fires

PESHAWAR: The KP government on Friday decided to constitute committees at the district level to curb forest fire incidents in future.

The decision was taken at a meeting on recent fire incidents in forests and mountains chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, said handout. Minister for Forest, Environment and Wildlife Ishtiaq Urmer, Special Assistant to Chief Minister for Information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, Chief Secretary Shehzad Bangash, Inspector General of Police Moazzam Jah Ansari, administrative secretaries and others attended the meeting. The participants reviewed causes of the fire incidents and took a number of decisions to prevent such incidents.

The officials told the meeting a total of 283 incidents of fires were reported in various places across the province in recent days. They claimed most of the cases fires took place on dry gross and shrubs on land surface, adding only 22 trees in designated forests were damaged. The officials claimed 72 percent of the total area affected by the fires was private or shared land.

They claimed 89 per cent of fire incidents were of ground fire, 20 percent surface fire and 4 per cent crown fire. The claimed that 8.5 per cent of the incidents were reported in reserved, 23 in protected and 5.5 per cent in guzara forest areas.

The officials told the meeting 20 percent of the total fire incidents took place due to human error, nine per cent due to natural causes and 71 per cent for unknown causes. The participants decided to formulate a comprehensive strategy for effective prevention of such incidents in future.

This would be done by tightening the relevant laws to punish those who set the forests on fires intentionally. The committees would be constituted for the purpose at the district level to be headed by deputy commissioners.

These bodies will have representation from police, Special Branch, Rescue 1122, Forest Department and district administrations. The forum decided to categorize the forests/ mountains as high risk, medium risk and low risk areas.

It was decided that special units of Rescue 1122 would be set up to control fires in high risk areas whereas heavy duty drones would be used to monitor hills and forests as well as to take timely action in case of fire incident there.

The meeting considered purchasing aircraft to control fires in remote and inaccessible areas and decided to restore the scientific forest management system. While briefing about the action so far taken against those involved in setting the forests/mountains on fire, it was informed that a total of 56 FIRs had been registered whereas 32 accused of arson have been identified and 11 of them have been arrested. The meeting was informed that three persons including a rescue worker were martyred in attempts to extinguish fire in the mountains.

The chief minister directed the relevant officials to devise a joint strategy by all relevant departments to prevent such incidents, adding that destructive activities such as forest fires should be made a non-bailable offence. He called for an effective surveillance system to prevent fire incidents in the future.