Incidents of forest fire increase this year in Nuwakot

KATHMANDU: A forest area spanning around 2,000 ropani of land (1.02 square kilometers) was damaged by recent wildfire in Nuwakot. The fire has its direct implications in forest products as well as the wildlife.

The fires that spread since the third week of February ravaged forest areas across all 12 local levels in the district, Division Forest Office Roshana Pokharel said.

As she said, the preliminary estimate is that fire spread to 28 community forests and a national forest as well.

The escalating frequency of forest fires in the district has prompted the authorities concerned to take proactive measures to mitigate the situation and create public awareness on its consequences. This year, a larger area of forest and a more number of forests were damaged by wild fires than last year. The lack of winter rainfall and human negligence and error are attributed to this situation.

The Office has recruited 10 ‘green volunteers’ and mobilised them to implement preventive measures against possible forest fire during the dry season.

Office information officer Raj Kumar Yadav said local community forest users are also being encouraged to take part in efforts aiming to minimise the risk of forest fires. The public awareness programme is targeted at making citizens aware of legal provisions against those responsible for causing the wild fire.

In some areas, forest fires were deliberately set and the Office is searching for alleged offenders. The law has the provision of a three-year jail sentence and a fine of Rs 60,000 for those guilty in deliberately causing forest fire.

There are around 400 community forests, national forests and private forest in Nuwakot and over 40,000 households have been directly benefited from them.