Forest fires continue to ravage fertile land inTelanganawith 9,520 hectares of forest land getting burnt this year alone. Senior forest department officials confirmed that 80% of these fires were man-made.
Worse still, out of the 11,657 fire alerts received by the officials, 11,202 were related to raging infernos in the reserve forests.
While forest fires in the state are majorly caused by careless beedi smoking by shepherds and cowherds, farmers taking to slash-and-burn Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and burning forest tracts for obtaining fresh tendu leaves and mahua flowers are also blamed for the frequent forest fires.
Though there was a 30% drop in the number of open fire incidents in
Punjaband a 48% drop in Haryana during last years paddy stubble burning season, the forest fires problem continues to be rampant across .
According to data from Forest Protection Management Information System (FPMIS), the incidence of over 9,000 hectares of land getting ravaged was marginally (2%) less than last year. The data was recorded between November and June, which is considered as the season for forest fires. The forest areas of Telangana are mainly dry deciduous in nature as leaves start drying up and falling on the ground from January onwards.